Collection: F.C.GUNDLACH

As a fashion photographer who uses the recording medium for his productions, the photographer must live, think and feel in his time. Fashion photographs are always interpretations and stagings. They reflect and visualize the present zeitgeist and anticipate tomorrow's spirit. They offer projection screens for identification but also dreams, wishes and desires. And yet fashion photographs often say more about a time than documentary photographs pretending to have depicted reality.

F.C. Gundlach was active as a producer of renowned national and international exhibition projects, promoter of young photographic talents, preserver of extraordinary photographic estates, consultant, and visionary in the sense of the medium of photography.

He played a significant role in the development of photography as an art form.

Vita

1926 Born 16 July in Heinebach, Germany. Parents Heinrich and Katharina Gundlach run the restaurant Zum Löwen in Heinebach.

1936 First camera, an Agfa Box with automatic release. Installation of a darkroom.

1936–1943 Jacob Grimm Grammar School, Rotenburg/Fulda.

1947–1949 Training as a photographer at the Private School for Modern Photography under Rolf W. Nehrdich, Kassel.

1949–1953 Assistant in various studios in Wiesbaden, Stuttgart and Paris, including as freelance assistant to Harry Meerson. Publications in radio and TV magazines including Film Revue, Funk-Illustrierte and Gong. Star portraits, reportages and fashion reports in Elegante Welt, Film und Frau and Stern.

1951 Exhibition at the Librairie Jean Robert, Paris.

1952 Business registration in Stuttgart as photojournalist. Founding of Studio 50.

1953 Start of intensive collaboration with Film und Frau, photographing more than 100 covers and over 2,500 editorial fashion pages until 1966.

1956 Moves to Hamburg.

1954–1966 Assignments for Constanze, Stern, Quick and other magazines. Location trips to Africa, Asia, and North, Central and South America. Cooperation with Deutsche Lufthansa from 1955.

1963 Start of intensive cooperation with Brigitte, photographing more than 180 covers and over 5,500 editorial fashion pages until 1986.

1966 Exclusive contract with Brigitte.

1967 Founding of CC (Creative Color).

1971 Founding of PPS. (Professional Photo Service) — a service company for photographers with b/w and colour laboratories, equipment retail, rental studios and specialist bookshops.

1976 Foundation of CCD Galerie and PPS. Galerie F.C. Gundlach, one of the first photo galleries in Germany. Approximately 200 thematic and monographic exhibitions presented until 1992.

1988 Appointed Professor at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin.

1992 Sale of the PPS. group of companies.

1993 Foundation of the Arbeitskreis Photographie in Hamburg.

1999 Initiator of the Triennial of Photography Hamburg.

2000 Establishment of the F.C. Gundlach Foundation, dedicated to maintaining, exhibiting and expanding the photography collection "The Image of Mankind in Photography," built since 1975, alongside his own work.

2003 Appointed Founding Director of the House of Photography, Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Loan of the F.C. Gundlach Collection to the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

2008 Retrospective exhibition F.C. Gundlach — The Photographic Work, House of Photography.

2021 Died 23 July in Hamburg.

Honours and Awards

1972 — Appointed to the German Society for Photography (DGPh)
1980 — Member of the German Photographic Academy (DFA)
1988 — Honorary Board member of the Professional Association of Freelance Photo-Designers (BFF)
1996 — Golden Honorary Pin of the German Society for Photography (DGPh)
1997 — Federal Cross of Merit with ribbon
1998 — Golden George Eastman Medal for outstanding services to German photography
2000 — Honorary Professorship, Hamburg University of Fine Arts
2001 — Culture Prize of the German Society for Photography (DGPh)
2006 — Medal for Art and Science of the Hamburg Parliament
2008 — Honorary citizen of Alheim/Heinebach
2011 — Culture Prize of the State of Hesse
2012 — Henri Nannen Prize