12/03/2024
The Leica Photo of the Year for 2025 has arrived!
Herlinde Koelbl is a precise observer, an experienced author, a versatile artist and sensitive chronicler of her times: over the past five decades, the German photographer has created an unequalled, multi-layered body of work. She devotes herself intensively to her subjects, and publishes her long-term studies mostly in book form, supplemented by comprehensive exhibitions. Her first photo book, Das Deutsche Wohnzimmer (The German Living Room) from 1980, was designed as a sociological study, and enjoyed great success. The combination of documentary images with personal statements by the people depicted has become one of the photographer’s trademarks. The impressive Jewish Portraits project, first published in 1989, which she worked on over many years and in which the direct black and white photographs are complemented by long interviews with contemporary witnesses, received much acclaim, and provided an emotional examination of contemporary German history. She became best known for her project Traces of Power – The Transformation of People Through Governance in which she observed German politicians over a period of eight years, starting in 1991. Following that, Koelbl portrayed and conducted interviews with Angela Merkel up until 2021. The six pairs of images selected for the exhibition from her Traces of Power – Angela Merkel 1991–2021 series are a clear demonstration of the photographer’s conceptual way of working. Her most important and tried and true strategy is to approach new subjects without prejudice, with curiosity and impartiality, but always well prepared.
The pictures print belongs to the photographer’s most recent series, Metamorphoses, where she traces the beauty of transience in the form of wilting flowers.
Since 2021, Leica Camera AG has granted the Leica Picture of the Year recognition to outstanding Leica photographers who have been inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame.
