Encounter of Two Pioneers

Among the most compelling chapters in Reiner Michelfelder's career is his collaboration with the photographer Peter Keetman. A co-founder of the legendary photographers' group fotoform, Keetman is regarded today as one of the most significant German photographers of the post-war era and as a pioneer of experimental photography.

Between 1950 and 1953, the two artists worked together in Munich at the agency werbeform. As early as 1948, Keetman had developed his celebrated pendulum images — oscillations traced by light and movement that became icons of modern photography.

Michelfelder recognised the creative potential of these visual worlds early on. While Keetman made the photographic oscillations visible, Michelfelder drew from them to develop new graphic compositions, advertising motifs and design systems. He coloured, combined and transformed the photographic structures into a visual language entirely his own. Many of the surviving works make it clear that, within this collaboration, Michelfelder above all took on the artistic and conceptual role, carrying the photographic experiments over into fresh creative contexts.

The surviving letters and works document an extraordinarily fruitful partnership. Keetman would later honour Michelfelder not only as a valued colleague but also as someone whose work and support had accompanied him over many years.

In retrospect, this encounter reads like the meeting of two pioneers: here the photographer who turned light into movement, there the designer who created new visual worlds from it. Together they made works that reach far beyond conventional photography or graphic art and remain astonishingly modern to this day.