Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-1
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-2
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-3
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-4
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-5
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-6
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-7
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-8
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-9
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-10
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-11
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-12
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-13
Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-1Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-2Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-3Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-4Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-5Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-6Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-7Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-8Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-9Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-10Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-11Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-12Hedda Hammer Morrison - China - image-13

Lot 60 D

Hedda Hammer Morrison - China

Auction 1089 - overview Cologne
31.05.2017, 15:00 - Photography
Estimate: 1.000 € - 1.200 €
Result: 5.704 € (incl. premium)

Hedda Hammer Morrison

China
1933-46

Portfolio containing 12 gelatin silver prints, printed before 1945. From 23 x 17.9 cm (24.2 x 19.1 cm) to 17.5 x 22.2 cm (19 x 23.5 cm), both portrait and landscape formats. Each mounted to card and under a mat, thereon signed in pencil below the mat opening. - Box with traces of usage. In original silk covered box.

In 1933 the then 25 year old Hedda Hammer left her native country, which was under control of the Nazis, to work at a commercial photo studio in Peking. During her time in China from 1933 - 1946, she took around 10,000 photographs, of which it is thought that fewer than 1000 have so far been printed and published. Her works can be placed somewhere between travel and documentary photography and depict China throughout the 1930s and 40s from the perspective of a Western photographer fascinated by the beauty of the foreign land. Following the practices established in photo studios of the time in Peking, Morrison created themed albums or allowed her customers, ususally western tourists, to create portfolios of loose prints which were sold as souvenirs. (cf. Claire Roberts, In her view: Hedda Morrison`s photographs of Peking 1933-1946, in: Institute of Advanced Studies Australian National University (ed.), East Asian History, no. 4, Dec. 1992, p. 82f.)
Fritz Wiedemann, former Consular General in Tianjin, originally owned the present two portfolios.

Motives include the silhouette of Qinian Dian, the terrace at Huanqiu Tan as well as Bai ta on Qiong Island at Beijing et al. (Reference source: online database of the Harvard College Library)

Provenance

Collection Fritz Wiedemann; private property, Cologne