Lothar Wolleh was a German photographer known for his portraits of international contemporary painters, sculptors, and performance artists. He photographed around 109 artists including Georg Baselitz, Dieter Roth, René Magritte, Joseph Beuys, and Jean Tinguely. His portfolio ‘Art Scene Düsseldorf’ portrayed his artist-friends from the larger Düsseldorf region.
Wolleh worked as a commercial photographer until the late sixties when he shifted to art photography. His work has been featured in numerous key galleries and museums worldwide. Wolleh experienced a tumultuous early life; he was wrongly accused of espionage by the Russians who then occupied his native Germany. Subsequently sentenced to six years of imprisonment in Soviet camp Workuta in USSR.
Wolleh also has a dedicated body of work on René Magritte portraits and documented Joseph Beuys’s first exhibition abroad at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1971. His biography is available in sixteen different languages on Wikipedia. Lothar Wolleh was an influential figure in modern photography whose contribution will stay relevant for decades to come due to his renowned portraits that have helped define an era of contemporary art history.