VERY BEAUTIFUL FIRST (!) PUBLICATION from 1985 (!) by well-known East-German photographer Manfred Paul, born on March 29, 1942, in Schraplau. EXTREM SCARCE VINTAGE GDR/DDR PUBLICATION. PUBLISHED IN THE GDR ("German Demoratic Republic) 4 (!) YEARS BEFORE TH WALL CAME DOWN. VERY FRESH CONDITION. THIS IS THE VERY FIRST PHOTOBOOK AUCTION ON CATAWIKI - dedicated entirely to the world of the former "DDR"/"GDR" ("GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC" or "EAST GERMANY") which existed from 1949 to 1990. Still largely undiscovered and unexplored, this field offers a wealth of fascinating discoveries for collectors. 5Uhr30.com presents exceptional works by renowned and emerging artists, survey works, compelling monographs, as well as extraordinarily rare small vintage catalogues, vintage children’s books and vintage factory photobooks; signed publications, posters, and much more. "Life is time. I understand reality through imagination. My images preserve things from disappearing, if I succeed in giving them a form." – Manfred Paul Manfred Paul is considered one of the important representatives of auteur photography in the German Democratic Republic. Like always we guarantee detailed and accurate descriptions, 100% transport protection, 100% transport insurance, and of course, combined shipping - worldwide. MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MISS THIS UNIQUE CHANCE! Brought to you exclusively by 5Uhr30.com, Cologne, Germany. Stattliche Kunstsammlungen, Cottbus. 1985. First edition, first printing. Softcover (as issued). 150 x 210 mm. 48 pages. Photos: Manfred Paul. Text in German. Condition: Inside and outside very fresh and clean with no marks and no foxing and much fresher than usual. Little bump at the bottom of the spine (and also at the bottom of the first part of the pages); no other remarkable flaws or defects. Overall fine condition, "After completing his high school diploma in 1960 in Querfurt, Manfred Paul initially worked as a quarry and railway construction laborer. After completing an apprenticeship as a photo lab technician, he worked as a photo lab assistant, stagehand, and assistant director, and from 1966 to 1968 as a theater photographer at the Landestheater Halle. In 1968, Paul moved to East Berlin, to the Prenzlauer Berg district. Following an internship at DDR television, he studied cinematography from 1968 to 1974 at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in Potsdam-Babelsberg. After leaving the program, he worked as a freelance photographer for industry. At the same time, he studied photography under Heinz Föppel and Horst Thorau at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig (HGB). Since 1973, he has worked as a photography instructor at various universities in Berlin, Potsdam, Leipzig, Dresden, and Munich. In 1973/74, he held teaching positions in still photography at the Film School in Potsdam-Babelsberg. In the 1990s, he continued teaching at the art academies in Leipzig and Dresden as well as at the Munich University of Film and Television. From 1995 to 2007, he was a professor of photography and audiovisual media at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences for Technology and Economics (FHTW). Until 1990, Paul was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR and the Association of Journalists of the GDR. Manfred Paul’s photography explores the existential question of human existence. His images become allegories, intended to convey the transience of all things as a condition of life. In the 1970s, Manfred Paul engaged with classical dance as a photographic subject. During this period, he produced a series of ballet scenes that offer insight into the demanding work of dancers behind the scenes. From 1973 to 1989, he created Berlin cityscapes and the Nature Morte cycle. Among his major bodies of work are also Lebenszeichen Verena—a portrait series (since 1971), Berlin NO (1973–1989), Interieurs (since 1983), Grenzenlose Räume—images documenting the demolition of the Berlin Wall (1989/90), artist portraits (1992/2002), self-portraits (since 1996), Metamorphosen des Meeres (2002/2008), and Seestücke (2011). These photographic series represent long-term projects that he continuously develops and updates. Until the 1990s, Paul produced numerous photographs of his East Berlin surroundings, which can be described as portraits of a pre-unification way of life. Later compiled under the title At the Edge of Standing Time, these photographs of firewalls, courtyards, window views, and house façades were published in 2012 in a book of the same name." (Wikipedia) Ulrich Domröse on Paul’s cityscapes: "With some surprise, the photography scene realized that there had been a comparably ambitious project on the Berlin Wall in East Berlin as in West Berlin, where the works of Shinkichi Tajiri, Hans W. Mende, Michael Schmidt, Karl-Ludwig Lange, and André Kirchner had long been known. However, the initial conditions were not comparable: in the GDR, there was a strict ban on photographing the 'Anti-Fascist Protective Wall.' Engaging with the Wall was therefore a risky undertaking, which is why Manfred Paul used a metaphorical language." While Paul’s early works consist exclusively of black-and-white images, in recent years he has increasingly photographed in color, as seen in the series Seestücke (2011). Art scholar Hubertus von Amelunxen on Manfred Paul’s photography: "I had long seen that he is a melancholic, that his images carry gloom, in his black-and-white pictures of East Berlin, the Wall structures and courtyards and their human traces, the still lifes and objets trouvés. But now, in color, Manfred Paul paints the world with time, as if the water shows the eternally futile search for form, in encounter with the clear line of the horizon, the miserable uncertainty of this world. I would call this early-postromantic, not post-DDR or postmodern—not a glorified image of the world, but the crystalline clarity of its negation, because Manfred Paul finds, precisely in the determined erasure of the world, the touch of time and space, in the past moments yet to come." According to Hubertus von Amelunxen, Manfred Paul’s photographs correspond to a global standard in photography and art.