75 Years of DGPh – 200 Years of Photography

27 October 2026 – 14 February 2027

To mark the 75th anniversary of the German Photographic Society (DGPh), the Cologne Museum of Applied Arts will showcase 50 works by winners of the DGPh Culture Prize (awarded since 1959) and the Dr Erich Salomon Prize (awarded since 1971). Among the award winners are seminal figures in the history of photography – from August Sander, Man Ray and Henri Cartier-Bresson, through Bernd and Hilla Becher, Robert Frank and Barbara Klemm, to Susan Meiselas, Wolfgang Tillmans and Trevor Paglen. Taken together, their works exemplify the development of photography from post-war modernism right up to the present day.

Since its foundation in Cologne in 1951, the German Photographic Society has honoured individuals who have rendered outstanding services to photography – image-makers as well as educators and inventors who laid the technical foundations of the medium. This history of the award serves as a barometer of the medium: it reveals how the understanding of the photographic image has evolved over seven decades – from the formal rigour of subjective photography, through social documentary photography and conceptual innovation, to the questions surrounding the image in the digital age.