Herbert List

Herbert List (Hamburg 1903 — Munich 1975) received his early education in Hamburg, and from 1921 to 1923 he studied literature in Heidelberg. For twelve years, between 1924 and 1936, he worked as a commercial representative in the family business devoted to the importation of coffee, and he travelled to Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador and the United States. In 1929 he met the photographer Andreas Feininger, who gave him a Rolleiflex as his first camera. Still-lifes predominate in his early photographs, which show the influence of Surrealism and of figures such as Man Ray, De Chirico and Max Ernst. In 1936 List left Germany and travelled to London and Paris, and also to Greece, a country in which he spent long periods, as recorded in his book Licht über Hellas, on which he worked between 1937 and 1941. He then returned to Germany and settled in Munich. In the mid-forties he produced a series of photographs of ruins, and also portraits of artists, composers and writers; this series of portraits was completed during his travels. List contributed to numerous publications, such as Arts et Métiers Graphiques, Verve, Vogue, Epoca, Look, Harper’s Bazaar, Photographie and Life. During the fifties he travelled to Italy, Spain, France, Mexico and the Caribbean, and he worked for the Magnum agency. In 1962 he began to give up photography gradually, and afterwards never returned to it. The exhibition includes a selection of 160 photographs spanning Herbert List’s entire artistic career and divided into five subject areas: metaphysical photography, Eros, ruins and fragments, portraits, and moments.