Arvid Gutschow

Abstract landscape and industrial photographs by an important representative of New Photography. Growing up in the bourgeois Hamburg-Blankenese, Arvid Gutschow (1900-1984) came into contact with the medium of photography at an early age through his father, a passionate amateur photographer. Gutschow studied law and later entered the civil service, taking photographs on the side. He was particularly interested in themes that he found in nature on the Elbe and North Sea, such as water, sun and sand. Gutschow's photographs were first published in 1930 in the illustrated book See Sand Sonne, which is one of the style-defining photo books of abstract landscape photography and was also considered particularly progressive due to its layout. The illustrated book showed pictures of the sea, mudflats, beach, dunes and coastal plants, with only occasional references to human intervention in nature. This publication compares selected, spectacular photographs by the Hamburg native with those of his contemporary Alfred Ehrhardt. Exhibition: Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation, Berlin 12.1. March 17, 2013