Robert Petschow and the new seeing

Robert Petschow

Since 2014 the Berlinische Galerie has awarded an annual Thomas Friedrich Research Grant in Photography. Michael Kempf, the recipient in 2019, worked on Robert Petschow (1888–1945), whose often seemingly outlandish aerial views taken in the 1920s and 1930s are still held in great esteem by historians of the medium. Petschow, one of the best-known balloonists in the Weimar Republic, not only published his images in aviation journals, but also contributed them to celebrated exhibitions and publications devoted to New Vision photography. Some thirty of his works will be shown in their own room within the permanent collection. Photographs from the holdings of the Berlinische Galerie will be complemented by loans from the Museum of Art and Cultural History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck.

The Thomas Friedrich Research Grant in Photography is sponsored by its founder, the designer, publisher, photo-historian, and collector Manfred Heiting (The Heiting Library Trust). It offers researchers an opportunity to spend a year investigating a specific set of works in the Photography Collection.