Peter Keetman (April 27, 1916 – March 8, 2005) was a German photographer.

Life and career

Peter Keetman was born in 1916 in Elberfeld. He was part of a very wealthy family and his father Alfred Keetman was bank director of the banking house J. Wichelhaus P. Sohn.''Genealogical Researches
/ref> Peter Keetman lived with his wife Esa in Prien,

Breitbrunn Breitbrunn is a Municipalities of Germany, municipality in the district of Haßberge (district), Haßberge in Bavaria in Germany. References

Haßberge (district) {{Haßberge-geo-stub ...

and

Marquartstein Marquartstein is a municipality in the southeastern part of Bavaria, Germany and is part of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Marquartstein and Staudach-Egerndach. It is situated in a region called Chiemgau, approximately 10 km south of Lake Chi ...

Chiemgau Chiemgau () is the common name of a geographic area in Upper Bavaria. It refers to the foothills of the Alps between the rivers Inn and Traun, with the Chiemsee at its center. The political districts that contain the Chiemgau are Rosenheim and T ...

(

Upper Bavaria Upper Bavaria (german: Oberbayern, ; ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered on the city of Munich, both state capital and seat o ...

). From 1935 to 1937 Keetman attended the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Lichtbildwesen (later called: Staatliche Fachakademie für Fotodesign Münch]). After graduating he became assistant to industrial and portrait photographer Gertrud Hesse in

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...

and to industrial photographer Carl Heinz Schmeck in

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

. In 1940 he was called up as a railway pioneer and returned from the war in 1944 seriously injured. From 1947 to 1948 he attended the master class of the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Lichtbildwesen. In 1948 he assisted Adolf Lazi with the planning and realization of the exhibition ''Die Photographie 1948'' in the Landesgewerbemuseum Stuttgart. In 1949 Keetman was a founding member of the avant-garde photography group ''

fotoform Fotoform was an avant-garde photography group founded in 1949 by six young German photographers, Siegfried Lauterwasser, Peter Keetman, Wolfgang Reisewitz, Toni Schneiders, Otto Steinert and Ludwig Windstoßer. Emergence After WW2, the photo ...

'' and played a decisive role in determining the direction there so called ''subjective photography'' took. In the exhibition ''Subjective Photography'' put together by

Otto Steinert Otto Steinert (12 July 1915 – 3 March 1978) was a German photographer. Life and work Born in Saarbrücken, Germany, Steinert was a medical doctor by profession and was self-taught in photography. After World War II, he initially worked for t ...

in 1951 and in the accompanying photobook, Keetman's works have a formative role. From 1948, Keetman was represented with pictures in all major German and some international photo magazines. His work series ''Eine Woche im Volkswagenwerk'' (''Volkswagen: A week at the Factory''), which he photographed in 1953 in Wolfsburg, became particularly well known. His pictures of assembly line technology, car body parts and technical details of the

Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...

were revolutionary, graphically designed photography through cropping and perspective. The

Museum Folkwang Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th- and 20th-century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patr ...

and the F. C. Gundlach Foundation dedicated a comprehensive retrospective to the photographer in 2016 on the occasion of his 100th birthday under the title ''Peter Keetman. Gestaltete Welt'' (''Peter Keetman. Shaping the World'').

Selected exhibitions

* ''Peter Keetman'', Staatliche Landesbildstelle, Hamburg 1961 * ''fotoform. Peter Keetman'', Kicken, Cologne 1980 * ''Peter Keetman. Photographien'', PPS Galerie F.C. Gundlach, Hamburg 1982 * ''Fotografien von Peter Keetman'', Fotografie Forum, Frankfurt 1989 * ''Peter Keetman. Fotografien 1937–1987'', Fotomuseum im Stadtmuseum, Munich 1991 * ''Peter Keetman. Fotografien'', Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal 1994 * ''Peter Keetman and fotoform'', Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York 1995 * ''Peter Keetman. Bilder aus dem 1995 erworbenen Archiv'', Museum Folkwang, Essen 1996 * ''Peter Keetman. Volkswagenwerk 1953'',

Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg is an art museum in central Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, opened 1994. It presents modern and contemporary art and is financed by the ''Kunststiftung Volkswagen.'' It takes up aspects of the industrial city of Wolfsburg, whic ...

2003 * ''Peter Keetman, Kicken, Berlin 2006 * ''Peter Keetman. Gestaltete Welt'', Museum Folkwang, Essen 2016 * ''Peter Keetman. Gestaltete Welt'', Haus der Photographie – Deichtorhallen, Hamburg 2016 * ''Peter Keetman. Gestaltete Welt'', Kunstfoyer, Munich 2017

Selected bibliography

* ''München. Lebenskreise einer Stadt'', Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Lindau 1955 * Ute Eskildsen (Hrsg.): ''Subjektive Fotografie – Bilder der 50er Jahre'', Folkwang Verlag, Essen 1984 * ''Eine Woche im Volkswagenwerk. Fotografien aus dem April 1953'', Nishen, Berlin 1985, * F. C. Gundlach (Hrsg.): ''fotoform / Peter Keetman'', Nishen, Berlin 1988, * ''Volkswagen: A Week at the Factory'', Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1992, * Manfred Heiting (Hrsg.): ''Peter Keetman. Bewegung und Struktur'', Cinubia, Amsterdam 1996, * Gijs van Tuyl (Hrsg.): ''Peter Keetman: "Volkswagenwerk 1953"'', Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld 2003, * F. C. Gundlach (Hrsg.): ''Peter Keetman – Gestaltete Welt''. Steidl, Göttingen 2016, (including extensive biographical and bibliographical information)

Awards

* 1981 David-Octavius-Hill-Medaille * 1991 Kulturpreis der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Photographie

Literature

* Angelika Bredemeyer: ''Der Photograph Peter Keetman'', Bonn 1992

References

Sources

The Peter Keetman Archive
in the F. C. Gundlach Foundation
Information on Peter Keetman
in the Deutschen Fotothek *
''Fotos wie cool Jazz''
Die ZEIT vom 30 June 2016
''Peter Keetman. Biography, Exhibitions, Awards''
Museum Folkwang (.pdf) {{DEFAULTSORT:Keetman, Peter 20th-century German photographers Photographers from North Rhine-Westphalia 1916 births 2005 deaths People from Elberfeld Artists from Wuppertal