The archive of photographers at the Deutsche Fotothek in Dresden is getting a prominent addition. It is taking over the estate of German advertising photographer Hein Gorny (1904-1967), as the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB) announced on Wednesday. The collection includes around 1000 prints, 17,000 negatives as well as photo albums and documents.
According to the SLUB, Gorny is considered a pioneering artist of New Objectivity and, like many innovators of photography in the first half of the 20th century, was self-taught. He became known above all as an advertising photographer for Bahlsen, Pelikan and AEG - and is considered a pioneer of modern advertising photography.
The Deutsche Fotothek now wants to offer the life's work of "this important representative of modernism", which has been preserved by the Berlin Collection Regard, a long-term perspective, permanent preservation and complete accessibility for science and research, as Fotothek director Jens Bove said. Gorny's complete works are to be digitized and made accessible online.
