Thomas Hoepker (1936-2024) - Vietnam 1970

Extraordinary photograph by Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker (1936-2024) during a reportage for the German magazine Stern in Vietnam between the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Print in excellent condition, no surface marks and edges perfect, Agfa baryta paper, stamps on the back.

Thomas Hoepker (Munich, 1936 – Santiago, Chile, 2024) was an important German photographer and photojournalist. He approached photography as a teenager and studied art history and archaeology in Munich and Göttingen. Beginning in the 1960s he worked for major German magazines, including Münchner Illustrierte, Kristall, and especially Stern, creating reports in numerous countries. In 1976 he moved to New York, where he continued his photojournalism and also worked for GEO. In 1989 he became the first German full member of Magnum Photos, of which he was president from 2003 to 2007. His style is characterized by a strong interest in everyday life and in human conditions, often told through very spontaneous color images attentive to context. Among his best-known photographs are the famous portraits of boxer Muhammad Ali and a controversial photograph taken on September 11, 2001, in which some people are pictured in Brooklyn while the Twin Towers burn in the background. Hoepker died in 2024 at the age of 88. He is remembered as one of the leading figures of late 20th-century photojournalism, capable of uniting reportage, humanitarian sensitivity, and attention to daily life.