Franz Christian Gundlach Biography
Christian Franz Gundlach was born in 1926, he is a photographer, gallery owner, collector, curator and founder. Since September 2003 he has been the founding director of the House of Photography in Hamburg's Deichtorhallen. He attended the Private Lehranstalt für Moderne Lichtbildkunst under Rolf W. Nehrdich in Kassel from 1946 to 1949. Subsequently, he began publishing theater and film reports in magazines such as Deutsche Illustrierte, Stern, Quick and Revue as a freelance photographer.
After his photographic training, which took place from 1946 to 1949 in Kassel, he became a freelance photographer in 1949, he published mainly for theater and cinema in magazines such as the German magazine, In a Star, and Quick Review.
He specialized in journalistic style fashion photography, which began in 1953, in portraits of fashion film stars and artists, among others, Romy Schneider, Hildegard Knef, Dieter Borsche and Jean-Luc Godard. Gundlach founded CC (Creative Color GmbH) in 1967 and soon after founded the photo services company PPS. (Professional Photo Service) with black and white and color laboratories, equipment shop, rental studios and a specialized bookshop. In 1975 he expanded the company to PPS. FC Gundlach Gallery, one of the first pure photo galleries in Germany.
In the PPS. Gallery, Gundlach presented more than 100 exhibitions from 1975 to 1992. Artists included Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, Joel-Peter Witkin and Robert Mapplethorpe, Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen, Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans. Since the early 1980s, his attention has been focused on his collection of photographic works and on designing photography exhibitions. After many years as a teacher, Gundlach was appointed professor at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin in 1988. As a lobbyist for photography he initiated the Hamburg Photography Triennial in 1999.
Fashion photographs have often become icons and have found placement in museums and collections over time. Exhibitions such as, that of fashion (1985), posing as body language' (1999), fashion photos' (2004) or, ”FC Gundlach. Das photographic works' (2008). The photographic works (2008) have been exhibited in important places at home and abroad.
With the beginning of the 1980s Gundlach increasingly focused his attention on collecting photographic works and planning exhibitions on an international level. His collection of photographic works entitled "The image of man in photography" is one of the leading private photography collections in Germany.
