Evelyn Richter is one of the outstanding representatives of social documentary photography in Germany. She photographs from a strangely disturbing point of view, which critics have called an Eastern one, noting something difficult to digest, anarchically melancholic, especially in the way Evelyn Richter traces the lines of faces, facial expressions and gestures with her camera: painfully tender and merciless.
"In portraits, I want to show how people find themselves. I look for the moment of concentration, not the extreme," Evelyn Richter confessed in an interview.
Far removed from any kind of propaganda or favour, the photographs taken on her own commission reflect the living and working environments of her fellow human beings. Driven by empathy and her own deep experience, Evelyn Richter tells the story of workers and artists, exhibition visitors and tram drivers in black and white images.
Evelyn Richter's work finds a remarkable expression in the photographic portrait of the Russian violinist David Oistrakh, which was created over many years, and the documentation of the life and work of the composer and conductor Paul Dessau.
"If one were to describe Evelyn Richter's paintings according to the attitude from which they emerged, one would use terms such as sincerity, caution and the doubtful search for a pictorial truth. This points to moral qualities that demanded and produced a special form. "
- MATTHIAS FLÜGGE - (2002)
The exhibition was a joint project of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung, the Evelyn Richter Archive of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig and the Leonhardi Museum Dresden.
