Photography by Albert Renger-Patzsch
In the 1920’s a number of German photographers that were linked to the social, political and artistic movement were referred as ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’ meaning new objective or new realism, which the new objectivity had tried to change the view point perspective on the development of photography than just the dark room experiments.
In its sharply focused and matter-of-fact style Albert Renger-Patzsch’s work exemplifies the esthetic of The New Objectivity that flourished in the arts in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Like Edward Weston in the United States, Renger-Patzsch believed that the value of photography was in its ability to reproduce the texture of reality, and to represent the essence of an object.
He wrote: “The secret of a good photograph—which, like a work of art, can have esthetic qualities—is its realism … Let us therefore leave art to artists and endeavor to create, with the means peculiar to photography and without borrowing from art, photographs which will last because of their photographic qualities.”