Herbert List (1903 - 1975) - Quartier du trastevere, Rome, 1953

Rare and magnificent photogravure by the famous German photographer Herbert List from the Magnum agency.
Photograph taken in the Trastevere neighborhood in Rome in 1953.
Limited edition copy, sold out commercially.

Description :
Photogravure on thick art paper with a press agency/journal stamp (Photo credits: Magnum Agency)
Author(s): Herbert List (1903 - 1975)
Editor: Magnum Agency Fund
Publication: 2001
Condition: Excellent, see photos.
Dimensions: 34.8 cm x 29.7 cm
Shipping: Professional, careful and secure packaging with tracking number and insurance via UPS or Colissimo.
Worldwide shipping

About the artist :

The images I took spontaneously—with a feeling of bliss, as if they had long inhabited my subconscious—were often more powerful than those I had carefully composed. I grasped their magic in passing.
- List

Born in 1903 into a prosperous merchant family in Hamburg, Germany, Herbert List combined his love of photography with a fascination for surrealism and classicism. He began his apprenticeship at a Heidelberg coffee merchant in 1921 while studying literature and art history at the University of Heidelberg. During his travels for the coffee trade between 1924 and 1928, the young List started taking photos, almost without any artistic pretension. List developed his style and technical skills by capturing still lifes and portraits, and discovered the Rolleiflex camera in 1930, which allowed him to create deliberate compositions. Although List was entirely self-taught, only his friendship with Andreas Feininger elevated his work to the next level. After purchasing the very expensive Rolleiflex, List invited Feininger from the Bauhaus school to teach him how to use it.

Leaving Germany in 1936 for political reasons, List briefly practiced photography in London and Paris, where he was sent by Harper's Bazaar. Dissatisfied with the challenges of fashion photography, List focused more on studio compositions, many of which resemble the paintings of Max Ernst and Giorgio de Chirico. List always considered himself an amateur, never a professional photographer. He did not want to be regarded as such. List photographed out of love for the medium and art, not on commission.

From 1937 to 1939, List was mainly interested in Greece and its ancient temples, sculptures, and landscapes. This fascination led him to hold his first solo exhibition in Paris. He then published in Life, Photographie, Verve, and Harper's Bazaar, and began working on his first book, Licht Ueber Hellas, which was not published until 1953. Despite hoping to escape World War II by working in Athens, List was forced to return to Germany in 1941. Due to his Jewish origins, he was prohibited from publishing or working officially in Germany, and several of his works stored in Paris were lost. Before the end of the war in 1945, he created portraits of personalities in Paris and Vienna. After the war, he photographed the ruins of Munich and became the art editor of Heute, an American magazine aimed at the German audience.

In 1951, List met Robert Capa, who convinced him to collaborate with Magnum. He dedicated himself to Italy from 1950 to 1961. At the beginning of this period, he discovered the 35 mm camera and telephoto lens. Influenced by his Magnum colleague Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Italian neorealist film movement, his work became more spontaneous. In the following years, he completed several books, including Rom, Caribia, Nigeria, and Napoli.

At his death in Munich in 1975, List's photographs had almost fallen into oblivion. However, interest in recent years has been rekindled thanks to a beautiful monograph published by Schirmer Mosel and numerous exhibitions. His work is represented in the photographic collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the V&A in London, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.