Albert Renger-Patzsch German, 1897-1966 Albert Renger-Patzsch (born in Würzburg) was a pioneering and influential proponent of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity or New Realism) in photography beginning in the 1920s. The son of an enthusiastic amateur photographer, Renger-Patzsch began taking photographs in his youth. Following studies in Dresden and service in the German army, he worked as director of the Folkwang Photographic Archives in Hagen for three years (1922-25), then established himself as a freelance photographer in Bad Harzburg and published his first book, Das Chorgestühl von Cappenberg (The Choir Stalls of Cappenberg, 1925). Three years later Renger-Patzsch moved to Essen, where he continued his freelance work and published Die Welt ist Schön (The World Is Beautiful), his well-known book containing 100 clear, precise photographs of plant and animal forms, landscape, architecture, and other manufactured objects, often in extreme closeup views. Through the pictures in Die Welt ist Schön, Renger-Patzsch expressed his belief in straight photography and the ability of the camera to clearly and realistically portray the physical world. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he continued to produce illustrated books, publishing monographs on Lubeck, Dresden, Hamburg, and the Essen Cathedral. He also taught for two semesters at the Folkwangschule in Essen (1933-34). In 1944 Renger-Patzsch lost thousands of his negatives when his studio was destroyed in an air raid during World War II. Around this time he moved to Wamel bei Soest and began focusing on landscape photography. Throughout his career Renger-Patzsch took part in a number of exhibitions, including the 1929 Film und Foto show of avant-garde photography and film in Stuttgart. In 1957 he was awarded the David Octavius Hill Medal by the Society of German Photographers for his contributions to the medium and in 1960 received the German Society for Photography Culture Prize. M.M.