Evelyn Hofer

In 1967 Evelyn Hofer portrayed the city of Dublin, once again a joint effort with V.S. Pritchett. As in the previously released publications, she tried to capture the character of Dublin with pictures of buildings, streets and especially with portraits.
The streets, buildings or the panoramic views over the city reveal Evelyn Hofer’s interest in the appearance of surfaces in certain light. Moreover colour becomes very important in the photographs. Especially in Phoenix Park on a Sunday and Girl with Bicycle the purple tricots and the red socks seem consciously placed within the composition.

Based on five Dublin photographs of Hofer David Fennessy composed 5 Hofer Photographs for Violoncello.

Evelyn Hofer, Dublin 1966
Evelyn Hofer hast been working as a photographer since the mid 1940s. Her work is inextricably bound up with the books she illustrated in the late 1950s and 1960s for acclaimed authors such as mary McCarthy and V.S. Pritchett, unforgettably evoking the atmosphere of places like Dublin, London and New York.

Evelyn Hofer's photographic work covers a wide spectrum of subjects and genres. She has distinguished herself as a photographer of architecture, interiors, landscapes, but also for her sinsitive still lifes and portraits. She is uncompromising in her commitment to honesty and directness in her pictures, exhibiting a deep empathy and understanding that allows her to bring out the innate beauty in her subjects. She seems to have an intuitive talent for getting to the core of each object or person she photographs. One senses that she takes plenty of time to get to know her subject before taking up her camera. She needs time to arrive at where she wants to be, to become part of what she is trying to capture or to generate a certain closeness to her subject.

In a letter to her friend V.S. Pritchett Evelyn Hofer clearly states her impressions at the end of her several month stay in Dublin:
"You and so many others say that Dublin is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe - this, from the very beginning, I never felt... However - I found the people much more fascinating - and have taken a great deal of portraits and have perhaps come closer to them than in any of the other books." (29 January 1966)

Produced in 1967, the Dublin book differs from the others in several ways. First, in this book Hofer began to use color imagery in a uniquely creative and even emotional way, and secondly, in Dublin she responded vividly to the people as well as the buildings. The most compelling portraits in the book are of people she met in her travels - waiters, hotel maids, soccer players, gravediggers, and street children. The architecture and light were present in both black and white and color.
(extracts from the text from Kim Sichel, in the monograph edited by Susanne Breidenbach)