that it was always his dream to make photograph
and text equal, confirming again his notion of
photography as a form of communicating existing
conditions and documenting natural facts.
WolfgangBrueckleSeealso:Architectural Photography; Becher, Bernd
and Hilla; History of Photography: Interwar Years;
History of Photography: Twentieth-Century Pio-
neers; Industrial Photography; Modernism; Photo-
graphy in Germany and Austria; Strand, Paul;
Typology
Biography
Born in Wu ̈rzburg, Germany, June 22, 1897. Schooled in
the cities of Essen and Dresden, Germany. Military ser-
vice, 1916–1918. Studied of chemistry in Dresden, broke
off studies in 1921. Later director of the photography
department of the publisher Folkwang in Hagen. Var-
ious positions in Berlin, Germany, and Kronstadt, Sie-
benbu ̈rgen, at the time in Germany, as photographer,
bookkeeper, and salesman. Moved to Bad Harzburg,
Germany, 1925, and Essen, Germany, 1929. There he
was director of the department of illustrative photogra-
phy at the Folkwang-Schule, 1933. After two semesters
he resigned his post in protest against the school direc-
torship that conformed to the new Nazi guidelines. In
World War II, a war correspondent. Destruction of his
archives in a bombing raid on Essen, 1944. In the same
year, he moved to the town of Wamel near Soest, Ger-
many. Awarded the David Octavius Hill Medal from the
Association of German Photographers, 1957. Awarded
the culture prize of the German Society of Photography,
- Gold medal award from the Photography Society
of Vienna, 1961. Member of the Society of German
Photographers, 1964. State prize for Artistic Crafts
from Norrhein-Westfalen, 1965. Died in Wamel, Sep-
tember 27, 1966.
Individual Exhibitions
1925 Renger-Patzsch Studio; Bad Harzburg, Germany
Folkwang Archiv; Hagen, Germany
1927 Museum im Behnhaus; Lu ̈beck, Germany
1928 Galerie Neue Kunst; Dresden, Germany
Galerie Gu ̈nther Franke; Munich, Germany
Graphisches Kabinett Kunde; Hamburg, Germany
Gewerbemusem; Wintherthur, Switzerland
Sta ̈dtisches Museum; Zwickau, Germany
Kunsthaus Schaller; Stuttgart, Germany
Museum im Behnhaus; Lu ̈beck, Germany
Kunstgewerbemuseum; Zurich, Switzerland
Kunstverein; Anhalt, Germany
Kunstgewerbemuseum; Cologne, Germany
Landesmuseum; Oldenburg, Germany
1929 Sta ̈dtisches Museum; Chemnitz, Germany
Sta ̈dtisches Museum; Zwickau, Germany
Landesmuseum; Darmstadt, Germany
Galerie Mittentzwey; Berlin, Germany
1930 Socie ́te ́Franc ̧ aise de Photographie; Paris, France
Graphisches Kabinett; Bremen, Germany
1960 Photokina; Cologne, Germany
1965 Lotte Jacobi Gallery; Hillsboro, New Hampshire
1966 Der Fotograf der Dinge, Ruhrlandmuseum; Essen,
Germany
1967 Sauerland Museum; Arnsberg, Germany
1971 Friends of Photography; Carmel, California
1974 Galerie Wilde; Cologne, Germany
1975 University of Maryland Library; Baltimore
1977 Industrielandschaft, Industriearchitektur, Industriepro-
dukt: Fotografien, 1925–1960 von Albert Renger-Patzsch;
Rheinisches Landesmuseum; Bonn, Germany
Sta ̈dtische Galerie Haus Seel; Siegen, Germany
Galerie Taube; Berlin, Germany
1978 Galerie Breiting; Berlin, Germany
Sander Gallery; Washington, D.C. Arts Foundation;
Rotterdam, Holland
1979 Bahnhof Rolandseck; Bonn, Germany
100 Photos 1928; Centre Beaubourg; Paris, France
(traveled through Germany)
1980 Galerie Zabriskie; Paris, France
Prakapas Galler; New York
Sonnabend Gallery; New York
Ba ̈ume; Galerie Wilde; Cologne, Germany
1981 Gestein; Galerie Wilde; Cologne, Germany
1983 California Museum of Photography; Riverside, California
1984 Portraits; Museum Folkwang; Essen, Germany
1985 Ruhrgebiet-Landschaften; Kunstverein; Munich, Germany
1997 Albert Renger-Patzsch im Museum Folkwang: Bilder
aus der Fotografischen Sammlung und dem Girardet-
Archiv; Museum Folkwang; Essen, GermanySelected Group Exhibitions
1928 Neue Wege der Photographie; Kunstverein; Jena, Germany
1929 Film und Foto: Internationale Ausstellung des Deutschen
Werkbundes; Ausstellungshallen und Ko ̈nigbaulichtspiel;
Stuttgart, Germany
1932 Exposition Internationale de la Photographie;Palaisdes
Beaux-Arts; Brussels, Belgium (traveled through Holland)
1959 Hundert Jahre Photographie, 1839–1939; Museum
Folkwang; Essen, Germany (traveled through Germany)
1977 Medium Fotografie; Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg;
Halle, East Germany
1978 Paris–Berlin, 1900–1933: Rapports et contrastes France–
Allemagne; Centre Georges Pompidou; Paris, France
1979 Deutsche Fotografie nach 1945; Kunstverein; Kassel,
Germany (traveled through Germany)
1980 Avant-Garde Photography in Germany, 1919–1939; San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Francisco, Cali-
fornia (traveled through the United States)
1982 Germany: The New Vision; Fraenkel Gallery; San
Francisco, California
1983 The View From Above; The Photographers’ Gallery;
London, Great Britain (traveled through Great Britain)
1986 Photographs of the Weimar Republic; Worcester Art
Museum; Worcester, Massachusetts (traveled through
the United States)
1994 Photographische Perspektiven aus den Zwanziger Jahren;
Museum fu ̈r Kunst und Gewerbe; Hamburg, Germany
Ku ̈nstler mit der Kamera: Photographie als Experiment;
Kunstverein; Ludwigshafen, Germany
1997 Vergleichende Konzeptionen: August Sander, Karl
Bloßfeldt, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Bernd und Hilla
Becher; Photographische Sammlung SK Stiftung Kunst
und Kultur; Cologne, GermanyRENGER-PATZSCH, ALBERT