About the Artist

Angelika Platen (born in Heidelberg in 1942) is a German photographer known for her artist portraits. She studied Art History and Romance & Oriental Studies at the Free University of Berlin. She then specialized in Photography at the School of Fine Arts in Hamburg. In 1968, she established herself as an independent photographer and photojournalist. She displayed her photographs for the first time in 1969 in an exhibition entitled "Artists are also humans". From 1972 to 1975, she managed the Günter Sachs Gallery in Hamburg. During this period, she photographed more than sixty artists. Her passion for artist’s portraits was born. Angelika Platen studied art history, Romance studies and Oriental studies at the Free University of Berlin and then photography at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts. From 1972 to 1975 she ran the "Galerie an der Milchstraße" in Hamburg, which belonged to Gunter Sachs.

During this time, she created about 100 photographic portraits of young artists who began their careers at that time, some of whom are now world-famous. Her works show the painters, sculptors, conceptual and object artists in their respective artistic contexts: they were photographed in characteristic settings or in unusual locations. Among the most important works are the series of pictures of Sigmar Polke, Blinky Palermo and Gerhard Richter, as well as the portraits of Joseph Beuys, Christo, Walter de Maria, Dan Graham, James Rosenquist, Günther Uecker and Andy Warhol. Since 1998, numerous portraits of artists, especially younger artists, have been produced. Among them are Julian Rosefeldt, Thomas Struth, Neo Rauch, John Armleder, Christian Boltanski and Jeff Koons. In her Phase II, Platen has now produced new portraits of some of the newcomers she portrayed in the 1960s/70s, which provide an interesting look at the established artists who are now coming of age. On the occasion of the 1998 exhibition "Angelika Platen - Photo Works," the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main acquired a collection of the photographs taken between 1968 and 1974. The illustrated book "Platen Artists" (Edition Stemmle), published to coincide with the exhibition opening, documents her photographic work from this period. In 2018, 180 portraits from her collection were exhibited at the Berlin Fotografiemuseum.