English Description: A pioneer of art microphotography, Carl Struewe (1898-1988) was one of the leading protagonists of German photographic art in the twentieth century. With his works ‘Forms of the Microcosmos’, dating from between 1926 and 1959, he was entering decidedly new photographic territory, arousing the attention of the photo-avantgarde worldwide. The work of the Bielefeld photographer Carl Struewe is, in its complexity, still buried treasure to this day. After a training as a lithographer and graphic artist, from the mid 1920s, he devoted himself, entirely self-taught, to the then ‘new medium’ of photography. With his early landscape and travel pictures following the trail of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in Italy, which he continued right into the 1950s, he set standards in photographic historiography even before Albert Renger-Patzsch. His innovative main body of work, though, was his ‘Forms of the Microcosm’, a series comprising more than 250 pictures, with which he became the precursor and pre-eminent stylist of art microphotography. Right at the start, picture titles such as ‘White Hovering over Grey’ and ‘Pristine Image of Defence’ point to the artistic aspiration and the impetus of a subjective, symbolic interpretation of natural forms invisible to the unaided eye. Even though Carl Struewe’s work has recently attracted increased attention once more both at national and international level, there has hitherto been no comprehensive assessment of his total uvre, a gap that has now been filled. The catalogue provides introductory texts on drawing, painting and photography, as well as the contemporary photographic reception. With more than 200 illustrations from all the phases of his creative life, we now have the first high-quality illustrated book on Carl Struewe’s complete works. German description: Carl Struewe (1898-1988) gehoert zu den wichtigen Protagonisten der deutschen Fotokunst des 20. Jahrhunderts. Mit seinen zwischen 1926 und 1959 entstandenen Arbeiten Formen des Mikrokosmos betrat er entschieden fotografisches Neuland und weckte international die Aufmerksamkeit der Foto-Avantgarde.
