The work of a German photographer who focussed her camera on the home front in 1914-18 is being displayed for the first time outside Germany.
Two exhibitions featuring the photos of Käthe Buchler (1876-1930), have just opened in Birmingham, under the title ‘Beyond the Battlefields’.
Buchler captured the ‘dislocations of war’, using different picture cycles to examine the care of orphaned children and wounded troops, as well as Germans at work and leisure.
Her late First World War photos include a series entitled ‘Women in Men’s Jobs’.
The images assembled for display in the UK are drawn from the Museum of Photography in her home city of Braunschweig.
It is noted that ‘Buchler’s exquisitely posed images are those of a respectable, bourgeois wife and mother with significant technical expertise and a remarkable (and little known) aesthetic vision.’
Presenting the dislocations of war along with striking moments of human warmth, ‘she offers us a fascinating window on the preoccupations of ordinary Germans living and working hundreds of miles away from the fighting.’
‘Beyond the Battlefields: Käthe Buchler’s Photographs of Germany in the Great War is in Birmingham from 20 October 2017 – 14 January 2018. There are two exhibitions – at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, focusing on Buchler’s images of women and children; and at the University of Birmingham, where her photographs of injured soldiers will be displayed alongside material relating to the university’s role as a hospital during the War.
‘Beyond the Battlefields’ will also visit Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Hertfordshire in 2018. More information here.
For further information on Käthe Buchler’s work (in German) and images see Das regionale Gedächtnis – Museum für Photographie Braunschweig.
‘Beyond the Battlefields’ is a touring exhibition co-organised by the University of Hertfordshire Galleries, Museum für Photographie Braunschweig and the Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded First World War Engagement Centres at the University of Birmingham, Voices of War and Peace; and the University of Hertfordshire, Everyday Lives in War.
Images: © Estate of Käthe Buchler – Museum für Photographie Braunschweig/Deposit Stadtarchiv Braunschweig)
Posted by: CN Editorial Team