untitled

gelatin silver print on cardboard

signed on mount

Max Baur is considered an important Potsdam photographer of the 20th century. In 1934, Baur moved to Potsdam, where he founded a publishing house and studio. To avoid being drafted into the Volkssturm at the end of the Second World War, he went into hiding with his mother in southern Germany in the fall of 1944. After the war, he returned to Potsdam and founded a postcard publishing house again in 1946.
From 1934 to 1939, he took numerous photographs of the impressive Sanssouci Palace, interpreting the atmosphere of the palace and the surrounding park with impressive precision and masterful sensitivity. Baur published the best shots in a small publication. In 1953, Baur moved with his family from Potsdam to Aschau in Chiemgau, which was associated with a new economic start. In 1954, he founded a photography store there and ran it until his death in 1988.
Strongly influenced by the avant-garde and Bauhaus, Baur developed his own style in his artistic work as well as in his commissioned photography, which anticipated the formal means of expression of later photographers. Baur turned to various genres, but was particularly interested in architecture and industrial photography, object photography and landscape photography. The special appeal of his work, apart from its exceptional quality, lies in the fact that he devotes himself to seemingly ubiquitous views, as in this shot. Everyone knows the misty view through the trunks in the forest.
(Christoph Fuchs, translated by deepL)