E.O. Hopp: The German Work

Between 1925 and 1938, photographer E.O. Hopp traveled the length and breadth of Germany, recording people and places at one of the most tumultuous times in the countrys history. He photographed movie stars and captains of industry, workers and peasants, and captured the birth of the Autobahn and UFA film studios in its heyday. He saw the rise of fascism, the creation of vast new suburbs, and the displacement of people from their traditional ways of life. With unprecedented access to the countrys world-famous factories and industrial installations, he witnessed Germany as few others couldbarreling headlong into the unknown. Moving, insightful, and deeply revealing, the full significance of Hopps German work has been unknown until now. This volume combines photographs published in Hopps legendary book of 1930, Deutsche Arbeit, with many new pictures never previously seen. From factory floor to the commuters of Berlin and Munich, Hopps photographs reveal the profound social and economic tensions that preceded the Second World War. This publication uncovers Hopp as a pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century photography, who introduced for the first time elements of typology, seriality and sequence, which have become key elements of contemporary photographic practice. Hopp used his experience in Germany to develop a new modern style of photographyshowing not just how things looked, but how it felt to be there.