b. Dortmund, Germany 1946

Born in 1946, Wilhelm Schürmann started studying chemistry in Aachen. He interrupted his studies however, for the sake of photography; he became a free-lance photographer doing jobs for various daily newspapers. From 1972 to 1976, he taught photography at the Reiff Museum in Aachen and soon became the instructor of photography at the Public Volkshochschule. In the late 1980s, Schürmann began to exclusively pursue teaching chemistry and photography and in recent years has become a renowned collector of contemporary art.

Alongside peers such as Bernd and Hilla Becher, Wilhelm Schürmann was exhibiting his photographs at a time when Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Candida Hofer or Axel Hütte were still students. Schürmann’s photographs of the 1970s have lately had a resurgence which is evident in the flurry of young photographers today when we account for the influence of his clean, crisp aesthetic that captures the mundane, built environment. Schürmann’s work has been collected by many major institutions, as well as many collectors, both of whom see in his work the roots of contemporary photography’s dialog on the landscape.

The photography of Wilhelm Schürmann has a pronounced graphic component and use of depth—a response to his subject matter of the cityscape and its complex jumble of space, buildings, and things. His photographs of tidy suburbs are, on the other hand, correspondingly simple. At times, Schürmann even concentrates on single houses in small towns and industrial communities (e.g. Belgium or Great Britain). A few images even portray absurd-seeming situations taking place on the fringes of the circus and carnival milieu. His own early photography works are devoted to the Man altered Landscape—the subtitle of the New Topographics exhibition in 1975 as well as a subject that has found broad interest in today's art world.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2012 Wilhem Schürmann: A Retrospective, SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany
1991 Monika Sprüth Gallery, Cologne
1990 Bärbel Grässlin Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany
1986 Fotoforum Boettcherstrasse, Bremen, Germany
1983 Song of Joy, Neue Galerie, Ludwig Collection, Aachen, Germany (together with Martin Kippenberger)
1979 Salzburg College Gallery, Salzburg, Austria
Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria
Museum of Xanten, Xanten, Germany
1978 Sander Gallery, Washington, USA
Gallery Agathe Gaillard, Paris, France
1977 Galerie Spectrum, Hannover, Germany
1976 Neue Galerie, Ludwig Collection, Aachen, Germany

Selected Group Exhibitions

2004 Special Exhibition of Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne at Art Cologne Fair, Cologne (together with Tata Ronkolz & Thomas Struth, Joachim Brohm and Gabriele & Helmut Nothhelfer)
2003 Monika Sprüth Gallery, Cologne, Germany
1990 Max Hetzler Gallery, Cologne, Germany (curated by Wilhelm Schürmann)
1979 Deutsche Fotografie nach 1945 (Photography in Germany after 1945), Kunstverein Kassel, Germany
1979 Photography as Art – Art As Photography II, London, GB, Lisbon, Portugal; Barcelona,Spain
In Deutschland (In Germany), Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany (curated by Klaus Honnef and Wilhelm Schürmann)
1977 Über Fotografie (About Photography), Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany; Museum of Art Bochum, Bochum, Germany
1977 Photography as Art – Art As Photography II, Warsaw, Poland; Lodz, Poland; Dallas, USA; Chicago, USA
1976 Photography as Art – Art As Photography, Kassel, Germany, Chalone-sur-Saone, France

Bibliography

Camera, Luzern, Switzerland, 8/74- 4/78
Creative Camera, 4/76-9/78
Zoom, Paris, France, 7/78
Fotografia Italiana, Milano, Italy, 7/76
Fotografien, Neue Galerie – Sammlung Ludwig, 8/76
Arte Fotografico, Madrid, Spain, 6/77
Kunstforum Vol. 18, Germany
Jahreskatalog 1977, Spectrum Galerie Hannover, Germany, 1977
Das Deutsche Lichtbild, 1976-1979
Über Fotografie, catalogue, Kunstverein Münster, Germany, 1977
Photography as Art – Art As Photography, (three catalogues),
Kassel, 1976, 1977, 1979
Wilhelm Schürmann-Fotografien, essay by Klaus Honnef, Bonn, Germany, 1979
Das nötig, Éditions Travers Neuchatel, Neuchatel and Cologne, 1990
Pegel Köln, Cologne, 1993
Taschen Collection, Cologne, 2004
Kippenberger, Cologne, 2004

Public Collections

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
Capital Group Intl., Los Angeles/ New York/ Hong Kong
Die Neue Sammlung, Munich, Germany
International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, USA
Landesmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Münchener Stadtmuseum, Munich, Germany
Museum of Modern Art, New York
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany
Preus Collection, Oslo, Norway