Photography in Dialogue with Old Masters

Nobuyoshi Araki, Beza, Pieter Hugo, Vandy Rattana

The unusual dialogue between Old Master paintings and contemporary photography has its roots in the history of the collection SØR Rusche Sammlung Oelde/Berlin. Its beginnings date back to the nineteenth century, when the grandfather of the collector Thomas Rusche ran a textile business in Westphalia, and accepted old pictures, household goods and hotplates as payment, collecting them with a horse-drawn cart. The resulting collection of Westphalian art and antiques has been passed down through the generations. In the 1960s, Thomas Rusche’s father Egon took over the collection and concentrated on 17th-century Dutch painting. Thomas Rusche assisted his father until the latter’s death in 1996, and since then has continued to add to and facilitate the study of the collection of Old Masters. Since 2005, the fashion company’s collection has been expanded to include contemporary positions, with a focus on painting in the cabinet-card format. But the collection today also includes over one hundred photographs in addition to drawings and prints, sculptures and media art. The collector Thomas Rusche is fascinated by the medium of photography due to its instantaneity and the constant interplay between appearance and reality. On three Saturdays in November, selected photographic works will be shown in dialogue with paintings by Old Masters in the offices of SØR in Berlin’s Charlottenburg borough.