Chargesheimer - Berlin (FOURTH BOOK, ORIGINAL DUSTJACKET) - 1959

VERY BEAUTIFUL PHOTOBOOK by Chargesheimer ("Cologne 5.30") -
with wonderful photos of Berlin after the second world war (subtitle: 'Pictures of a big City').

TRUE FIRST ORIGINAL GERMAN EDITION by Kiepenheuer & Witsch with blue jacket (there was a club edition by Büchergilde Gutenberg at the same time with silver jacket).

RARE ORIGINAL DUSTJACKET.

ENJOY THE NEWEST EDITION of the SUPER POPULAR SINGLE-SELLER AUCTIONS by 5Uhr30.com (Ecki Heuser, Cologne, Germany).

Offering some of the BEST PHOTOBOOKS WORLDWIDE - from my private collection and from recent acquisitations.

BRILLIANT LAYOUT of the book inside and of the dustjacket by Chargesheimer (Karl-Heinz Hargesheimer).

Great fourth (!) book of 14 books in total during short life-time (1924-1971); after 'Cologne intime' (1957), 'Im Ruhrgebiet' (1958) and 'Unter Krahnenbäumen' (1958).

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Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne. 1959. First edition, first printing.

Hardcover in blue linen with dustjacket. 200 x 255 mm. 184 pages. 187 photos in black and white. Photos: Karl Heinz Hargesheimer ('Chargesheimer'). Text: Hans Scholz. Text in German.

Condition:
Book inside clean with no previous owner marks and with no foxing; pages smell like smoke, no other remarkable flaws or defects. Dustjacket quite fresh and complete with no missing parts; little trace of use. Overall fine, better than usual condition.

Very beautiful Chargesheimer title and one of his best books - with the rare original dustjacket.

'Chargesheimer is regarded as one of Cologne's central photographic personalities after the Second World War. But to categorize him only as a photographer is not enough. Rather, he saw himself as an artist and was active in many fields in this sense. He painted, created sculptures and designed stage sets, but his photographic work runs like a common thread through his life's work.
He did not complete any regular training, but spent several semesters in the photography class at the Cologne Werkschulen and at the Bavarian State Institute for Photography. During these years, he worked with light graphics and as a stage photographer.
From the early 1950s, he also took on various photographic assignments for advertising, a field which he also taught as a lecturer at the Bi-Kla School in Düsseldorf until 1955. This was followed by exhibitions in which a new thematic focus, people photography, began to emerge, which was ultimately reflected in a dense series of illustrated books.
Between 1957 and 1960, seven books were published - on Cologne and the Rhineland, the Ruhr region and Berlin - with which he established his reputation as an exceptional observer of his environment and his contemporaries. These books, although not always unchallenged at the time, are now considered landmarks in the history of photography. After these successes, he turned increasingly to the theater, creating stage sets and directing, while at the same time working on kinetic objects, the so-called 'meditation mills'. His work in the theater resulted in the illustrated book 'Theater - Theater' (1967) with a very direct, non-theatrical, but occasionally stylized image of people and situations. The fact that many books received introductions by well-known authors, including Heinrich Böll and Martin Walser, shows the great esteem in which Chargesheimer was held in intellectual circles.
In his last works, illustrated books about Hanover and Cologne (1970), a new pictorial style emerges that has its roots in New Objectivity, but also contains clear critical potential in the choice of locations and exaggerated perspectives.
This peculiarity, combined with an adherence to the black and white mode that went against the trend of the time, can be interpreted as a new stylistic stage, but probably also as a sign of a burgeoning depression. Chargesheimer retired voluntarily at the end of 1971.'
(Gallery Julian Sander)

'Karl Heinz (also Carl-Heinz) Hargesheimer (1924-1971) was a German photographer who became known under the artist name Chargesheimer. Chargesheimer studied graphics and photography at the Cologne Werkschulen after the Second World War. He was interested in various arts, such as opera, theatre, stage design and costumes, as well as painting, but mainly in photography, within which he experimented with abstract light structures on photographic paper and photomontages from 1950 onwards.
From 1955 onwards, Chargesheimer worked as a freelance photographer and attracted attention both for his biting portraits of public figures and his true-to-life reportages about his fellow countrymen. He published 14 illustrated books on various subjects such as cities, landscapes and theatre. He also created meditation mills, moving sculptures made of acrylic glass.
After Chargesheimer had made a name for himself with the photo book Cologne intime (1957), the Spiegel publisher Rudolf Augstein ordered a portrait of Konrad Adenauer from him for the cover shortly before the 1957 Bundestag elections. In line with Augstein's hopes, the result was an image of a ‘mask-like face chiselled in granite, telling of political petrification and ageing’. The general outrage that followed made Chargesheimer famous throughout Germany.
Chargesheimer loved Cologne and was closely connected to the city throughout his life. He took a very critical view of the city's development during the reconstruction phase and also later on. The street he portrayed in 1958, Unter Krahnenbäumen, increasingly changed its character. In his last book, Köln 5 Uhr 30 (Cologne 5.30), he took a critical photographic stocktaking in 1970: 'a melancholy swan song to “his” city of Cologne, which threatened to freeze in concrete.'
The German Society for Photography (DGPh) in Cologne honoured Chargesheimer with its Culture Prize in 1968.
Friends of Chargesheimer portray him as a loner who sometimes made things difficult for himself and others, but who was very talented and could also be a generous person. He suffered greatly from the prevailing photographic industry, which did not allow him to think for himself and which dealt with his photos 'like Germany at war with the Poles.' This was one of the reasons why he turned to his meditation mills, for example, which were hardly noticed by the public. One of his wire sculptures was even destroyed by the public. Chargesheimer commented that this did not surprise him, he had not really expected anything else.
Chargesheimer was found dead in his flat at the beginning of January 1972 and was buried in Cologne's Melaten Cemetery. Subsequently, his grave was long thought to be untraceable; it was only rediscovered in the 2000s. From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, he lived with the actress Gisela Holzinger. Chargesheimer had been married to Ann Redlin (1940-1974) since 1963; the marriage was later divorced.
Redlin is also buried in the Melaten Cemetery.'
(Wikipedia)