WERNER ROHDE | 'KARNEVAL'

Karneval was one of seven photographs by Werner Rohde shown in the landmark Film und Foto exhibition in Stuttgart in 1929. It is one of very few photographs illustrated in the prestigious Film und Foto catalogue, in which it received a full right page illustration opposite László Moholy-Nagy’s portrait of Oskar Schlemmer. 

The psychological interplay between face and mask was a popular subject for painters and photographers of this period, and it is often explored in Rohde’s images. He relentlessly experimented with texture, make-up, camera angle, and lighting effects to achieve in print the cinematic ‘full tonal scale of blacks and grays and whites’ conceived in his mind (Points of View: Masterpieces of Photography and Their Stories, p. 229). 

Rohde’s extant early prints are rare and seldom appear at auction. Although Rohde enjoyed early success, his promising career was cut short by the Second World War and his entire photographic output is limited to a decade.