Sibylle Bergemann was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 photographer. In 1990, she cofounded the Ostkreuz photographers agency. She is remembered for documenting developments in East Berlin

East Berlin

East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...

 during the Communist era and for her international assignments for Stern

Stern (magazine)

Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...

and later for Geo

GEO (magazine)

GEO is a family of educational monthly magazines similar to the National Geographic magazine. It is known for its profound reports, which are accompanied by opulent pictures.The first edition appeared in Germany in 1976...

.

Early life

Born in 1941 in Berlin where she was raised and educated, she first worked as a secretary for the East German periodical Das Magazin. Interested in art and culture, from 1966 she studied photography in the Weissensee district of Berlin under the photographer Arno Fischer, with whom she was married until 1985.

Career as photographer

After first contributing to leading East German periodicals of the time, Das Magazin and Sonntag, in the early 1970s, her photographs started to appear in the women's fashion magazine Sibylle where she soon developed her own style. Her portraits were not analytical but rather descriptive, showing people as they appeared in real life. She moved on from fashion to photograph first her own country, East Germany, and later the rest of the world. In 1990, together with Ute Mahler and Harald Hauswald

Harald Hauswald

Harald Hauswald is a German photographer.With Sibylle Bergemann and Ute Mahler, Hauswald was a co-founder of the Ostkreuz photo agency.-Exhibitions:*"Ostzeit – Stories from a Vanished Country", House of World Cultures, 2009....

, she founded the Ostkreuz agency, which now represents a score of photographers.

Perhaps Bergemann's most important legacy is the series of black-and-white photographs she took of everyday life in East Germany as it evolved over the years. Later, she compiled photographic reportages about New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

; and even more recently, turning from black and white to colour, she travelled through Africa and Asia on assignments for Geo

GEO (magazine)

GEO is a family of educational monthly magazines similar to the National Geographic magazine. It is known for its profound reports, which are accompanied by opulent pictures.The first edition appeared in Germany in 1976...

.

Recognition

In 1994, Bergemann's talent was recognized when she became a member of Berlin's Akademie der Künste

Akademie der Künste

The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...

. In 2007, she held an exhibition of her work at the Museum für Photographie in Braunschweig

Braunschweig

Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....

. She explained her approach to photography in just a few words: "I'm interested in the edges of the world, not the centre."

Book contributions by Bergemann

This list is not complete.

• Die Stadt. Vom Werden und Vergehen / The City. Becoming and Decaying. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010. ISBN 978-3-7757-2659-7.
• Ostzeit. Geschichten aus einem vergangenen Land / Stories from a Vanished Country. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010. ISBN 978-3-7757-2486-9.

External links

• Bergemann at Ostkreuz
• "Public Eye – Ostkreuz Photography Agency Turns 20". Goethe Institut.