Karl Hugo Schmölz

Karl Hugo Schmölz took over management of his father, Hugo Schmölz’s, studio – the "Fotowerkstätte Hugo Schmölz" in Cologne – in 1938. After the war he documented the decimated city objectively and recorded its renewal and the following years of economic boom in the Rhineland with his plate camera. Several Rhenish architects such as Wilhelm Riphahn commissioned him to document their buildings. Humans never feature in his photographs, allowing architecture to play the star role. Schmölz’s images are characterised by their clearly structured sense of space and subtle play of light. In the late 1950s he founded the "schmölz + huth" photo studio together with his second wife, the fashion photographer Walde Huth.