Deborah Bell Photographs has launched an online exhibition titled "Industry & Urban Life, 1928-1930," featuring the remarkable work of German photographer Else Thalemann. The exhibition highlights previously misattributed photographs that have been rediscovered and properly credited to Thalemann, showcasing her significant contributions to early 20th-century industrial and urban photography.
Else Thalemann was born in Berlin in 1901 and began her photography training around 1926 at a photography studio on Leipziger Strasse. By the early to mid-1930s, she had established herself as a professional photographer, working on commercial assignments for advertising clients from both a studio and darkroom located in her Berlin apartment.
A significant chapter in photography history involves the 1930 publication of "Schwarzes Revier," an influential sociological study documenting work and life in the factories and mines of Germany's Ruhrgebiet region, where heavy industry thrived during the early 20th century. The book was created by photographer and filmmaker Heinrich Hauser and published in Berlin in January 1930, with all photographs initially credited to Hauser himself.
However, over the past several decades, photography scholars have conducted extensive research that has led to the re-attribution of many of these powerful industrial photographs to Thalemann. In addition to the industrial work, scholars have also identified photographs of vibrant city life and architecture in Paris and London, created around 1930, as Thalemann's work.
Thalemann's career and life were dramatically affected by World War II when her Berlin apartment building was struck by bombs and completely destroyed in the resulting fire. She continued to live and work until her death in 1984, which occurred during a trip to the Lauterbach Abbey in the Black Forest.
The recognition of Thalemann's work has grown significantly in recent decades. In 1993, the Hidden Museum in Berlin mounted a dedicated exhibition titled "Else Thalemann: Industrial and Plant Photography of the 1920s and 1930s." That same year, the prestigious Getty Museum featured several of Thalemann's photographs in the group exhibition "Women on the Edge," further cementing her place in photography history.
Today, Thalemann's photographs are held in the collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Chicago Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Folkwang Museum in Essen, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, among many other significant cultural institutions globally. The current online exhibition at Deborah Bell Photographs, located at 526 W 26th St. Room 411, New York, NY 10001, provides viewers with access to these historically important works that capture a crucial period in German industrial and urban development.
