This is the official audioguide to the special exhibition, Evelyn Richter: A Photographer’s Life at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (17.11.2023–17.3.2024).

Evelyn Richter (1930–2021) is one of the most important women photographers of the 20th century. Her work follows in the tradition of humanistic documentary photography. In its entirety it offers an impressive portrait of East German society in the second half of the 20th century.

In this exhibition we are presenting Evelyn Richter’s major works and highlighting important stages in her biography. Individual sections are devoted to her self-portraits, her photojournalism and her photo books. A further part of the exhibition (on the third floor) looks at Richter’s friendship with the photographers Ursula Arnold (1929–2012) and Eva Wagner-Zimmermann (1928–2015), and with the sculptor Christa Sammler (*1932).

The Evelyn Richter Archive of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig comprises 900 major works by the photographer. The Ursula Arnold Archive of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig represents another important voice of 20th-century humanistic documentary photography in the collection.

The MdbK is one of Germany’s most important municipal art museums. Its collections comprise eight centuries of photographs, paintings, prints, installations, media arts, sculptures and drawings, primarily in the field of European art history. One of the Museum’s focal points is 20th- and 21st-century art from Leipzig and its place in an international context.