Sven Türck
The Royal Library, Denmark
”The World itself has taken on a "photographic face”. These words expressed by Siegfried...See more
”The World itself has taken on a "photographic face”. These words
expressed by Siegfried Kracauer, the German journalist, sociologist, and
film critic in 1927 demonstrate his concerns about the rising number of
photos in newspapers and magazines. The pictures had arrived, however, were
increasing in numbers and proved soon to be a permanent feature. In
Denmark, the photographer, Sven Türck (1897-1954), contributed with his
advertising and illustrative photography from the 1930s and 1940s, to a new
mass media picture of the country.
When Türck died, a large collection of his photos, both negatives and positives, became the property of The Royal Library. About 4000 of these pictures have now been digitized and are available online:
www.kb.dk/images/billed/2010/okt/billeder/subject668/en/
Türck’s pictures give us a photographic impression of Danish society during the 1930s and 1940s. The cities have grown and rural life is already distant to many people. Clerks and sales women are biking through the streets or enjoying leisure time on the beach. Castles and manors are destinations for tourists, timbered housing is considered as part of a national romantic building style, while new housing in international style rises, such as the Hotel Astoria near the Copenhagen Central Railway Station and the Blidah Park apartment in Hellerup, north of Copenhagen.
The photographer documents children playing hopscotch in the yard or Christmas shoppers on a snowy street in Copenhagen. He catches the sun light and the Sunday mood under the foliage in Dyrehaven, a park north of Copenhagen, and he takes numerous pictures of historical buildings, modern architecture, harbors, bridges etc. He selects his motives carefully for the purpose of capturing the beautiful, the happy, the free spirit. The crisis of the 1930s, mass unemployment and social problems are invisible in the world of Türck.
Türck, then, is a clever director who often goes beyond merely selecting motives. He stages masons, beer delivery men, and dairymen at work, grandparent, parents and grandchildren around the Christmas tree and tanned young women in the sand dunes. One would not be surprised if they suddenly broke out in song as in the popular movies of the day.
The borderline between documentation and staged photography is always difficult to draw. The interesting aspect of the Türck’s pictures is that is documents the childhood of pictorial culture, of the days when the world acquired its photographic face. And when the sunshine girl in the poem, “Reklameskibet” (the advertising boat) of Otto Gelsted smiled her “Odolsmile”.
Visit the universe of Sven Türck:
www.kb.dk/images/billed/2010/okt/billeder/subject668/en/
For more information please
contact KOB@kb.dk
Acting Head of The Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs, Mette Kia Krabbe Meyer
When Türck died, a large collection of his photos, both negatives and positives, became the property of The Royal Library. About 4000 of these pictures have now been digitized and are available online:
www.kb.dk/images/billed/2010/okt/billeder/subject668/en/
Türck’s pictures give us a photographic impression of Danish society during the 1930s and 1940s. The cities have grown and rural life is already distant to many people. Clerks and sales women are biking through the streets or enjoying leisure time on the beach. Castles and manors are destinations for tourists, timbered housing is considered as part of a national romantic building style, while new housing in international style rises, such as the Hotel Astoria near the Copenhagen Central Railway Station and the Blidah Park apartment in Hellerup, north of Copenhagen.
The photographer documents children playing hopscotch in the yard or Christmas shoppers on a snowy street in Copenhagen. He catches the sun light and the Sunday mood under the foliage in Dyrehaven, a park north of Copenhagen, and he takes numerous pictures of historical buildings, modern architecture, harbors, bridges etc. He selects his motives carefully for the purpose of capturing the beautiful, the happy, the free spirit. The crisis of the 1930s, mass unemployment and social problems are invisible in the world of Türck.
Türck, then, is a clever director who often goes beyond merely selecting motives. He stages masons, beer delivery men, and dairymen at work, grandparent, parents and grandchildren around the Christmas tree and tanned young women in the sand dunes. One would not be surprised if they suddenly broke out in song as in the popular movies of the day.
The borderline between documentation and staged photography is always difficult to draw. The interesting aspect of the Türck’s pictures is that is documents the childhood of pictorial culture, of the days when the world acquired its photographic face. And when the sunshine girl in the poem, “Reklameskibet” (the advertising boat) of Otto Gelsted smiled her “Odolsmile”.
Visit the universe of Sven Türck:
www.kb.dk/images/billed/2010/okt/billeder/subject668/en/
For more information please
contact KOB@kb.dk
Acting Head of The Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs, Mette Kia Krabbe Meyer
