She has long been considered one of the most significant and renowned German photographers: now Herlinde Koelbl is being honoured with the Leica Hall of Fame Award for her lifetime achievements. The ceremony will be part of this year’s Celebration of Photography from 9 to 10 October at Leica Headquarters in Wetzlar, Germany. The complementary exhibition will be on display at the Leica Gallery Wetzlar up until 19thJanuary 2025. One of the photographer’s motifs has also been chosen as Leica Picture of the Year 2024.

Koelbl is a precise observer, an experienced author, a versatile artist and sensitive chronicler of her times: over the past five decades, German photographer Herlinde Koelbl has created an unequalled, multi-layered body of work. She devotes herself intensively to her subjects, and publishes her long-term studies mostly in book form, supplemented by comprehensive exhibitions. Her first photo book, Das Deutsche Wohnzimmer (The German Living Room) from 1980, was designed as a sociological study, and enjoyed great success. The combination of documentary images with personal statements by the people depicted has become one of the photographer’s trademarks. The impressive Jewish Portraits project, first published in 1989, which she worked on over many years and in which the direct black and white photographs are complemented by long interviews with contemporary witnesses, received much acclaim, and provided an emotional examination of contemporary German history. She became best known for her project Traces of Power – The Transformation of People Through Governance in which she observed German politicians over a period of e