Ragazzi.

by Konrad Helbig

Konrad Helbig bereiste von den 50er bis in die 80er Jahre die klassischen Mittelmeerländer und hielt in seinen Bildern die Architektur, die Kunstwerke und die Landschaften, vor allem aber die Bewohner der von ihm bereisten Regionen fest. Fasziniert von der Schönheit männlicher Jugend fotografierte Helbig Generationen von "ragazzi", meistens Fischerjungen und Leichtmatrosen aus den Küstendörfern Siziliens. Oft zeigte er sie in ihrer natürlichen Umgebung und Kleidung; immer wieder aber inszenierte er sie am Strand unbekleidet und in den Posen der griechischen Epheben. Helbigs Hommage an sein Sizilien wird im vorliegenden Band zum ersten Mal im Zusammenhang publiziert.

Genres: Art and Photography

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Konrad Helbig was a soldier in Wehrmacht, fighting in the Soviet Union during World War II. He was taken captive and became a prisoner of war. Helbig was able to return to Germany in 1947. Immediately thereafter, at the age of thirty, he began studying Art History and Archeology. He was particularly interested in Mediterranean cultures. After graduation, he traveled countless times to the Mediterranean over the next few decades. Helbig worked both as a photographer and author of journal articles, with publications appearing in travel magazines such as Merian and Atlantis. He also published picture books, such as his volume on Sicily published in 1956. Helbig is mostly known for his intimate images of young Sicilian men. After his death in Mainz in 1986, these nude photographs of young men were discovered in his estate. The photographs, some of which were taken in the 1950s, belong to the tradition heralded by photographers such as Wilhelm von Gloeden and Guglielmo Plüschow. Helbig's work has been preserved in the photographer archives of the Deutsche Fotothek in Dresden (which includes 160,000 images, of which 60,000 are color slides), in the Image Archive Foto Marburg of the University of Marburg (23,800 images, of which 11,000 are photographs of Greece and 6,000 of Italy), and in the Hamburg State Archive (as part of the collection of the German Society for Photography archive). His works are also in collections of several private foundations and museums in Germany.