Elger Esser

These new works are based on old postcard motifs from the artist’s own long-standing, comprehensive collection of landscape photographs by anonymous photographers from the early years of photography. Historical landscape photography is one of Elger Esser’s central themes.  The original picture postcards date from the period from 1900 onwards and were printed by the Parisian publisher Lucien Levie (LL) in photogravure or copper gravure and then largely coloured.  Esser enlarges these old-fashioned, romantic motifs from the pioneering days of tourism to such a degree that their characteristically very fine grain is quite visible.  Thematically, Esser’s works refer to the early days of photography in the art historical context.  In this sense, they are also reminiscences of Impressionism, a movement in art which, parallel to the discovery of photography, was largely concerned with the phenomenon of light, a phenomenon which also has an important part to play in Esser’s own landscapes.