on abstraction and spontaneity and is aligned with
the international movement known as Subjective
Photography, which stressed the personal interpre-
tation of otherwise ‘realistic’ imagery to create sub-
jective works of art. Along with photographers
such as Arno Jansen and Edmund Kesting, Char-
gesheimer exhibited in the 1951 and 1954Subjektive
Photographieexhibitions organized by Otto Stei-
nert in Saarbru ̈cken, Germany. Chargesheimer’s
use of theSubjektiveaesthetic, or utterly realistic
beauty, can be seen in his experimental, abstract
work, such asPlayof 1950 and in his advertising
photography, such asFord Taunus, 1960, an auto-
mobile atop its reflection off the wet pavement is a
typical example of his interpretation of an every-
day subject. Chargesheimer described his inten-
tions this way: ‘‘I want to show the world as it
is, our world in all its harshness, its strangeness, its
serenity and its beauty, yes its beauty’’ (Albus
Volker 1997, p. 149–150).
The photo-essay books Chargesheimer pub-
lished, nine of 12 between the years 1957–1961,
dominate his 20-year career. His books were com-
posed primarily of black and white photographs
with a brief text accompaniment by authors such
as Heinrich Bo ̈ll and G. Ramsegger. Because many
felt that he portrayed the cities and people of Ger-
many’s Rhineland area in a negative light, his
books evoked strong reactions both pro and con.
L. Fritz Gruber described Chargesheimer as a
photographer who ‘‘possessed a seemingly uncanny
ability to capture the personalities of prominent
people, and to capture events, landscapes, and
buildings as well as the life and emptiness of cities
with precise verisimilitude.’’ (Gruber 1982, p. 15).
Chargesheimer was also a portrait photographer
known for his close-up portrayals of stars and
celebrities such as jazz artists Billy Holiday, Jose-
phine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald,
German Chancellor Willy Brandt, and others.
One of Chargesheimer’s best known photographic
portraits is that of German Chancellor,Konrad
Adenauer, 1954, taken the same year the first tele-
vision broadcasts were made in Germany.
Reinhold Misselbeck, Curator of Photography
and Video at Museum Ludwig, Cologne and one
of the leading authorities on Chargesheimer’s work,
refers to Chargesheimer’s photographic approach as
the ‘‘the opposite of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s.’’ (Mis-
selbeck 1983, p. 7.) Misselbeck points out that when
photographing in the street, Chargesheimer did not
photograph ‘‘decisive moments’’ like Cartier-Bres-
son, but instead portrayed his subjects as performers
in a sort of photographic theater. To bring his inter-
ests in photography and the theater closer together,
Chargesheimer began working as a theater designer,
director and set-builder in cities throughout Ger-
many after 1961 and then produced the photo-
essay Theater-Theater, in 1967 with behind the
scenes shots of rehearsals, make-up rooms, and cos-
tume making.
Less known, though, are Chargesheimer’s cam-
era-less experiments in the darkroom, which from
1948–1953 included gelatin silver paintings, or light
graphics (photograms) that he created without
knowledge of similar work by Man Ray or La ́szlo ́
Moholy-Nagy. Chargesheimer returned to his
darkroom experiments in the 1960s, and in the
1990s a catalogue of these experimental photo-
graphs were published, making this work more
widely available.
The range of Chargesheimer’s work can be
grasped by comparing his first book Cologne
Intime, 1957, to his last,Cologne 5:30 AM, 1970.
InCologne Intime, we see the localStadtsbu ̈rger
(citizens of Cologne) and the inner city up-close
and personal at festivals and at home through the
lens of one of the city’s native sons, a city and
people Chargesheimer knew and loved. In contrast,
inCologne 5:30 AM, Chargesheimer shows a cold
and alienating city, the results of modern public
works. By photographing concrete highways, street
signs, and public housing high rises devoid of peo-
ple, he shows us how much his hometown had
changed and indirectly how much this depressed
him. In 1995 Cologne photographer Wolfgang
Vollmer retraced Chargesheimer’s steps and photo-
graphed the exact same locations, which can now
be found in the bookCologne 1970/1995.
Numerous articles were published about him
during his lifetime by German, Italian, and English
magazines, journals, and newspapers such as:Die
Welt,Neue Post,Stern, andDer Spiegel. In 1968
Chargesheimer was the recipient of the Kulturpreis
der Deutschen Gesellschaft fu ̈r Photographie and
since 1986 the city of Cologne has given a prize
titled ‘‘Chargesheimer Preis der Stadt Ko ̈ln’’ to an
emerging photographer from Cologne who works
in photography, film, or video. Additionally, in
1970 he was awarded the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus
Prize by the City of Hagen, West Germany.
Chargesheimer died on New Year’s Eve, 1971 in
Cologne, Germany. Since his death, the more than
30,000 negatives he made are being reevaluated,
researched, and investigated, and he has been
included in a number of exhibitions as his place
among the post-war, European avant-garde con-
tinues to be reassessed.
CHRISTIANGerstheimerCHARGESHEIMER