Fotoausstellung Thomas Hoepker "MitMenschen - von Hippies, Nonnen und Akrobaten"

The Leica Gallery Stuttgart is showing extraordinary and previously unpublished photographs by Thomas Hoepker up to and including April 26, 2025.

The exhibition "MitMenschen - Von Hippies, Nonnen und Akrobaten" shows an important part of Thomas Hoepker's photographic life's work. He only passed away in July 2024 at the age of 88, so the exhibition, which his niece Sonja Kruchen put together for Leica the year before his death, is a special tribute: Largely unknown pictures were thus "rediscovered" in his archive. The focus is on people, whose multifaceted everyday lives tell the most diverse situations and events and whose visualized stories can sometimes be read like a book.
Hoepker's always alert and sensitive gaze follows politically and socially critical images, in which a good dose of humour may also have its place. But he never exposes people, he treats them with the necessary respect. In his photographic work, chance acts as a source of inspiration, depicting reality that often captures irony and humor.
The images presented mostly depict everyday scenes, funny situations or people, landscapes, bizarre architecture or simply graphic situations. They include a bride and groom in Portugal posing for a photo with their wedding party, but the happiness of husband and wife is nowhere to be seen on their faces.
Or a nun looking out of the side of a house entrance with a Klosterfrau advertising sign hanging above her head.
Another motif shows the information board of a lending library in a window, under which puzzle books and penny dreadfuls are attached to clothespins.