F.C. Gundlach – ALL EYES ON PARIS

Dear Photography
July 17 to August 2016

In honor of F.C. Gundlach, DEAR Photography presents a show on the occasion of his 90th birthday, dedicated to the city that was an important address, place of inspiration and starting point for numerous fashion shoots for F.C. Gundlach throughout his life.

On October 7, 1950, the photographer crossed the French border for the first time, his longed-for destination being Paris. The result was a series of atmospheric, melancholic images with strong contrasts of light and shadow, reminiscent of the film aesthetics of Poetic Realism and film noir of the 1940s. Numerous night shots are reminiscent of Brassaï's Paris de nuit . "Paris...", as F.C. Gundlach put it, "...photographed itself."

The motifs include, for example, a couple in love on the banks of the Seine, a stroller in the evening mist, and a bistro at dusk. In 1951, F.C. Gundlach also had his first solo exhibition in Paris at the Librairie Jean Robert in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. After the Second World War, the city quickly re-emerged as a center for art and literature, film and fashion. F.C. Gundlach met the leading figures of this cultural metropolis: Yves Montand with his wife Simone Signoret, Gérard Philipe, Jean Cocteau, Jacques Hébertot, and Jean Marais.

Gundlach's increasing visits to Paris eventually sensitized him to the world of fashion. The names of the great Parisian fashion houses reappear in the collections photographed by F.C. Gundlach in the following years: Chanel, Jacques Fath, Pierre Balmain, and Cardin. In 1947, Christian Dior launched the first collection of his fashion house, and in 1952, F.C. Gundlach photographed "Dior in Paris" for Die Elegante Welt .

Ultimately, ready-to-wear fashion surpasses haute couture in popularity. F.C. Gundlach responds with fashion reports whose staging is characterized by a high degree of spontaneity and narrative elements: Gitta Schilling sometimes relaxed, then again mysterious, in a bar under the gaze of male patrons, dancing with her coat fanned out on the streets of Paris, or having a tête-à-tête in the spotlight of the Pont Alexandre III.

The narrative of Paris as the city of love is followed by a photo reportage that captures Karin Mossberg and Karl Fehrmann running in front of the metro and later, at a late hour, shows them in a restaurant; finally, he kneels before her, she in a pearl-embroidered Dior wedding dress. Paris becomes a stage on which F.C. Gundlach artfully stages reality between illusion and perception.

Dear Photography
Kleine Reichenstr. 1
20457 Hamburg