Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung

Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung is a Berlin foundation dedicated to the scholarly study and preservation of the work of Alfred Ehrhardt, a photographer, documentary filmmaker and outstanding figure of the New Objectivity movement in early twentieth century German visual culture. The foundation was established in November 2002 by the artist's son, Munich based asset manager Dr Jens Ehrhardt, with the aim of safeguarding his father's artistic estate, comprising paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, negatives, films and documents, and making this body of work accessible to a wider public.

Ehrhardt himself, active from the 1920s through the postwar decades, moved between painting, photography and cultural filmmaking, developing a distinctive visual language centred on natural forms, structures and landscapes that continues to resonate with contemporary artistic concerns. The foundation's holdings, now cared for at its premises on Auguststrasse in Berlin Mitte, form the basis for an ongoing programme of research, exhibition and publication built around this legacy.

Beyond its stewardship of Ehrhardt's estate, the foundation also engages with historical photographers connected to his circle, and, significantly, with contemporary photography and media art more broadly. Its particular curatorial approach lies in placing Ehrhardt's photography and filmmaking into dialogue with contemporary artistic positions that engage, in the spirit of his own recurring themes, with the concept of nature and with what the foundation describes as the constructions of the natural. This dialogue unfolds not only through exhibitions but through accompanying events, conversations and publications that extend and deepen the conversation between historical and contemporary practice.

This curatorial trajectory gives the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung a distinctive position within Berlin's photography and media art landscape, one that treats a historical body of work not as a closed archive but as an active point of reference for present day artistic inquiry into landscape, structure and the natural world. Exhibitions are regularly accompanied by guided tours and talks, often featuring the participating contemporary artists alongside the foundation's own curatorial team, and the foundation extends its reach beyond Berlin through the Alfred Ehrhardt Haus in Triptis, Ehrhardt's Thuringian birthplace, which offers a further site of engagement with his life and work.

The foundation's core organisational pillars rest on the preservation and scholarly cataloguing of the Ehrhardt estate, its exhibition and publication programme placing historical and contemporary photography in dialogue, and its outreach activities across both its Berlin and Triptis locations. As a private foundation established through the Ehrhardt family, it is sustained through this founding endowment together with the continued friendly support of external partners, allowing the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung to maintain an independent and consistently research driven programme within Berlin's cultural landscape.