This is the first publication to comprehensively explore art collector and philanthropist Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl’s collection of work by European women photographers. One of the largest of its kind, the collection comprises 220 works by nearly 90 emerging and established women photographers from 17 countries in Western and Eastern Europe. Covering photo-based art made between 2000 and 2020, Haukohl’s eclectic selection questions traditional notions of nation, identity and gender, with an emphasis on representations of the body and associated themes of beauty, femininity and objectification. Artists including Yto Barrada, Uta Barth, Carolle Benitah, Melanie Bonajo, Vanessa Beecroft, Valerie Berlin, Natalie Czech, Eva Kotatkova, Vera Lutter, Josephine Pryde and Shirana Shahbazi employ wide-ranging materials and conceptual approaches to expand our changing understandings of what constitutes womanhood, Europe (for many, in the context of the legacy of Soviet rule), and the medium of photography itself.

For me, the images in the Haukohl Collection had not to be limited to photographic impressions of women; but more importantly, how do women look at the topics of portrait, still life, landscape, and do they use performance and conceptual ideas in photography? - Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl