Los 4280

Ruge, Willi
(1892-1961)From the series "On the Avus with Caracciola"

Aus dem Katalog
Fotografie des 19. – 21. Jahrhunderts
Auktionsdatum 5.6.2024

From the series "On the Avus with Caracciola". 1931. Vintage ferrotyped gelatin silver print. 14 x 20,3 cm (17,9 x 24,2 cm). Typed press text label with Willi Ruge's text and copyright note Fotoaktuell attached to the verso.

This rare image shows the Berlin Funkturm taken by Willi Ruge while in a race car with the famous driver Rudolf Caracciola on the Berlin Avus, the first European motor racetrack. This series was titled "On the Avus with Caracciola" published in the same year as his other famous series "I Photograph Myself During a Parachute Jump" for which Ruge actually jumped out of a plane with a parachute. Ruge was known for his photographic essays published in the magazines of the 1920s-30s, and he founded his own picture agency Fotoaktuell. Both a daredevil and photographer, he attempted to place the viewer in the center of the action and thus achieved truly innovative images. Sadly, his archive was destroyed during an air raid on Berlin in 1943, making his photographs very rare. – Corners bumped, creases/buckling throughout, backed tear in right edge and lower right corner.

Lit.: Ute Eskildsen. "Willi Ruge and Fotoaktuell: Adventures for the Press" in: Mitra Abbaspour/Lee Ann Daffner/Maria Morris Hambourg. Object: Photo. Modern Photographs. The Thomas Walther Collection 1909-1949, MOMA New York, see pp. 347-357.