Brothers in spirit

An exhibition featuring works by Toni Schneiders and Peter Keetman, on display until June 30, 2021 at the Elbschlossresidenz in Hamburg.

Toni Schneiders and Peter Keetman – two pioneers of post-war modern photography in Germany. Both shared a modern desire for design and abstraction on the one hand, and a humanistic worldview on the other.

They shared a thematic focus on their immediate surroundings in the Alpine foothills and an interest in the simple and the obvious. While Toni Schneiders expanded his photographic repertoire through travels around the world, and his photography is characterized by humor and empathy for human nature, Peter Keetman tirelessly dedicates himself to photographic experimentation, such as masterful light pendulum oscillations.

In 1949, Keetman and Schneiders joined the young, rebellious members of the fotoform group, who, inspired by the pre-war avant-garde, developed a contemporary visual language in photography. Their artistic program was based on formal reduction, the creative power of light, and the subjectivity of individual experience of the world.

This period of new beginnings and the artistic environment of fotoform were the origin of the lifelong artistic friendship between Peter Keetman and Toni Schneiders. Even as their independent work and commissioned photography increasingly intertwined in the following years, the two remained in artistic and personal contact. This is evidenced by numerous letters from Lindau to Lake Chiemsee and back, as well as mutual portrait photographs.

Toni Schneiders (1920-2006) completed a photography apprenticeship in Koblenz in 1939, immediately after which he was drafted as a war correspondent. In 1948, Schneiders opened a photography studio in Lindau. In 1949, he became a founding member of the "fotoform" group and exhibited extensively both in Germany and abroad in connection with this group and in exhibitions on "subjective photography." He published his first travel photographs in Merian magazine and, from 1952 onward, undertook extended journeys to destinations including Ethiopia, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean region, and Southeast Asia. His photographs have appeared in nearly 200 illustrated books.

Peter Keetman (1916-2005) studied at the Bavarian State Institute for Photography in Munich from 1935 to 1937. In 1940, he was drafted into military service and returned disabled. He attended a master class at the Bavarian State Institute for Photography in Munich in 1948 and assisted Adolf Lazi in Stuttgart. Also in 1949, Keetman was a founding member of the "fotoform" group and the "subjective photography" movement, publishing and exhibiting his work within this context. He worked in many areas of photography – documenting the reconstruction of Munich, revealing hidden structures in landscapes and natural phenomena, and translating the dynamism of the economic miracle era into abstract images. In 1953, he created the series "A Week at the Volkswagen Plant."

Visits to the exhibition are by appointment only at the Elbschlossresidenz!