Ture Christer Strömholm (22 July 1918 – 11 January 2002), also known by the pseudonym Christer Christian, was a Swedish photographer and educator. He is known for his intimate black and white

street photography Street photography is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within Public space, public places. It usually has the aim of capturing images at a decisive or poignant moment by caref ...

portrait series, particularly his portraits of

transgender women A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their ...

in Paris. Strömholm received the 1997

Hasselblad Award The Hasselblad Award (in full: Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography) is an award granted to "a photographer recognized for major achievements". History First awarded in 1980, the award—and the Hasselblad Foundation—wa ...

Life and career

Strömholm was born in Vaxholm, Sweden, to Lizzie Strömholm and Fredrik Strömholm, an army officer. His childhood was marked by family instability. The family moved frequently, and in 1924 his parents divorced, but remarried shortly thereafter. In 1934, Strömholm's father died by suicide. Beginning in 1932, Strömholm was active in the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

Nordic Youth movement, modelled after

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

. He led one of its cells during this time, and in 1936 hoisted a flag of a

swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

on the People's House in Stockholm.Göteborgs-Posten 1997-10-19
/ref> Over the course of his young adulthood, however, his political perspective changed; he joined the Swedish Volunteer Corps at the age of 21, and supported the Norwegian resistance movement later in the war. In 1937 Strömholm travelled to Dresden to study art under the German painter . However, he came into conflict with

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

and other

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

artists, and his stay in Dresden was brief. In 1938, Christer Strömholm and other young Nazis broke into the socialist organization Clarté's offices and stole membership lists. He was sentenced to conditional labor. In 1945, after the end of the war, Strömholm sheltered Norwegian Nazis and war criminals on the run who had been volunteers in the Waffen-SS. He was convicted for this in court. Strömholm was a member of Otto Steinert's Fotoform group of photographers for subjective photography. He co-founded Fotoskolan academy in Stockholm in 1962 and was its director. Alumni of the school include production designer Anna Asp, cinematographer

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, and photographers Anders Petersen, Björn Dawidsson (Dawid), and Gunnar Smoliansky. He is noted for his depictions of

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women in the Place Blanche area of 1950-1960s' Paris, published as ''Les amies de Place Blanche''. The historian Philip Charrier has investigated how Strömholm represents his Place Blanche trans subjects relative to their own self-narratives and period societal views on transgenderism.Philip Charrier, "The Trans body in Christer Strömholm's ''Vännerna Från Place Blanche''" (1981), ''Photographies'' 15(1) 2022: 33-56; Philip Charrier, "The Photographic Gaze Meets the Medical Gaze: Two Cross-Dressing Men in Christer Strömholm's Place Blanche," ''Photography and Culture'' 14(1) 2021: 51-70. The critic

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, writing in ''The Guardian'', said he "is known as the father of Swedish photography both for his abiding influence and for his role as a teacher." In 1998 Strömholm received the 1997

. The award citation described him as "one of Scandinavia's leading photographers, and ..the first post-war photographer to gain international renown".

Books

* ''Poste Restante''. P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, 1967. With a transcript of an interview with Strömholm, "Before the Photographs." Swedish-language edition. **Stockholm: Art & Theory, 2016. . With a transcript of an interview with Strömholm, "Before the Photographs." English-language edition. * ''Les Amies de Place Blanche''. ETC Sweden, 1983 * ''Kloka ord'' (Wise Words). Legus, 1997. . A collection of aphorisms and work notes. * ''Imprints''. Hasselblad Center, 1998. * ''Nueve Segundos De Mi Vida''. Mexico: Conaculta / Centro de la Imagen, 1999. * ''On Verra Bien''. Bildverksamheten Strömholm & Färgfabriken, 2002. * ''Christer Strömholm''. Photo Poche. Arles, France: Actes Sud, 2006. * ''Poste Restante''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2011. * ''Les Amies de Place Blanche''. Stockport, Cheshire: Dewi Lewis, 2012. ; and Villejuif, France: Aman Iman, 2013. . Re-edited from the original edition. * ''Post Scriptum Christer Strömholm''. Stockholm: Max Strom, 2013.

Awards

*1998: 1997

Exhibitions

* ''Les Amies de Place Blanche'', International Center for Photography, New York, 2012.

References

External links

Christer Strömholm estate website
''Note: This article contains content from the Swedish-language edition of Wikipedia'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Stromholm, Christer 1918 births 2002 deaths Swedish photographers Photographers from Stockholm Street photographers Swedish Nazis Swedish volunteers in the Winter War