Keld Helmer-Peterson was born in the Østerbro quarter of Copenhagen on the 23rd of August in 1920 and he died on the 6th of March in 2013.
He was a Danish photographer who gained worldwide recognition in the 1940s and 1950s regarding his abstract colour photographs. His photographing journey began in 1938 when he received a Leica camera as a graduation gift. In the 1940s he became rather familiar with German inter-war photography, which had developer at the Bauhaus. At the age of 23, he began to work with an abstract formal language and in 1948 he published the bilingual book ‘122 Farvefotografier / 122 Colour Photographs’ , this book was inspired by the Bauhaus and Albert Renger-Patzch, another German photographer. |
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This was quite a bold movement from a self-taught photographer at this time, although the book is considered to be quite a pioneering piece of work within colour photography today. The success of Keld Helmer-Peterson’s book aided his finances so he was able to move to America to study at the Institute of Design in Chicago.
During his education there, he both taught and studied under the American photographer Harry Callahan.
During this time period, Keld Helmer-Peterson began to experiment with contrast in a graphic black and white expression.
He was influenced by a variety of constructivist artists and their fascination with industry’s machines and architecture’s constructions. Some of the photographs that he created during his studies in Chicago were published in another of his books, ‘Fragments of a City’ in 1960. This book consisted of 35 tightly composed graphic images portraits of the city.
Keld Helmer-Peterson’s also worked with “cameraless” photography, the photogram.
Photograms are a dark room technique in which objects are place directly on light-sensitive photographic paper.
He was very curious about pushing the limits of the media, as he was very experimental and explorative with his works.
In the 1970s he was fixated with the figurative potential in found objects, he would walk the streets with his head down in search of any of these objects. A selection of these photographs were also published in the book Danish Beauty, in 2004.
In 2007 he published an extensive retrospective monograph, which presented broad samples of his work from his lengthy career.
In his last works before he unfortunately passed away, Keld Helmer-Peterson experimented with digital technology, he returned to his classic black and white graphic expression that he had studied within his education.
He also experimented with placing old negatives and found objects onto a flatbed scanner in order to treat them digitally. He was assisted with this process by the photographer Jens Frederiksen.
During his education there, he both taught and studied under the American photographer Harry Callahan.
During this time period, Keld Helmer-Peterson began to experiment with contrast in a graphic black and white expression.
He was influenced by a variety of constructivist artists and their fascination with industry’s machines and architecture’s constructions. Some of the photographs that he created during his studies in Chicago were published in another of his books, ‘Fragments of a City’ in 1960. This book consisted of 35 tightly composed graphic images portraits of the city.
Keld Helmer-Peterson’s also worked with “cameraless” photography, the photogram.
Photograms are a dark room technique in which objects are place directly on light-sensitive photographic paper.
He was very curious about pushing the limits of the media, as he was very experimental and explorative with his works.
In the 1970s he was fixated with the figurative potential in found objects, he would walk the streets with his head down in search of any of these objects. A selection of these photographs were also published in the book Danish Beauty, in 2004.
In 2007 he published an extensive retrospective monograph, which presented broad samples of his work from his lengthy career.
In his last works before he unfortunately passed away, Keld Helmer-Peterson experimented with digital technology, he returned to his classic black and white graphic expression that he had studied within his education.
He also experimented with placing old negatives and found objects onto a flatbed scanner in order to treat them digitally. He was assisted with this process by the photographer Jens Frederiksen.