Evelyn Hofer

Evelyn Hofer – Lessons with Robert Spren and Hans Finsler

Evelyn Hofer was born on 21st January 1922 in Marburg an der Lahn. When the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933, she moved to Switzerland and Spain with her liberal-democratic parents and older sister, and from 1935, attended the international school in Geneva. Evelyn Hofer took an early interest in photography, and her decision to become a photographer was followed by lessons with Hilmar Lokay (1899-1953) and Robert Spreng (1890-1969) in Basel. She then went to Zurich, where she took private lessons with Hans Finsler (1891-1972) and completed an apprenticeship in a local photo studio. The Second World War prompted the Hofer family to emigrate again in 1942, this time to Mexico City, from where she moved on to New York City alone in 1946 in order to build a life as a photographer.

Commissions from fashion magazines and book authors

Evelyn Hofer was soon able to establish herself as a fashion photographer in New York and received commissions from renowned fashion magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. The Russian-born graphic designer Alexei Brodowitsch (1898-1971), who had a decisive influence on the style of Harper's Bazaar, thought highly of Evelyn Hofer, who also cultivated friendships with Hans Namuth (1915-1990), Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) and Richard Lindner (1901-1978). Hofer's work for Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) was particularly important and opened many doors for in her early career. Over the course of her long career, she repeatedly worked with authors and added important images to their work, including William Walton (1902-1983), Jan Morris (1926-2020) and V. S. Pritchett (1900-1997). She photographed people, cities and landscapes with her own interpretation of street photography, combining authenticity with intimacy and dignity.

Experiments with colour in large format

Evelyn Hofer created almost all of her pictures like a portrait and, according to her critics, gave even mere objects a lyrical and dramatic appearance. For the artist, it was important not to pose her models, but to show them realistically and authentically - whereby she held the view that, as a photographer, she ultimately always saw herself in the viewfinder. In her visual language, Hofer showed a tendency towards New Objectivity, drew on the teachings of August Sander (1876-1964) and was one of the first photographers to use a large-format colour camera, which she persistently adhered to. At a time when black and white photography was still considered the supreme discipline of photographic art, she experimented extensively with colour. In large format, she mainly photographed the little people: migrants, workers, ordinary people on the street and in marginalised areas. She was never an avant-gardist; she was not interested in contemporary trends, and used a classic style with great technical aplomb and elegance, without effects or technical gimmicks.

In 2005, she returned to Mexico City to her sister, where she died on 2nd November 2009.