Emil Otto Hoppé: Hoppé's London

His photographs have managed to outlast fashion – one of the rare achievements of photographic history.

- Cecil Beaton

In the early 20th Century, Emil Otto Hoppé produced one of the most unique photographic documents of London. Over 35 years he captured the city at a critical point in its transition from a 19th Century city into a modern metropolis. We are delighted to announce the first ever exhibition of the people and landscape of London as seen by Hoppé. 

Working systematically between 1910 and 1945 Hoppé chronicled the landmarks and architectural fabric that defined the city of London. His work can be compared to Eugene Atget’s photographs of Paris, and Bernice Abbott’s of New York both in scale and modernistic approach. His photographs record the break with academic and historical traditions in architecture, and the post World War I modernity creeping into the city in the form of graphics and motorcars. He also produced an intimate portrait of the city’s diverse inhabitants – the ladies about town, stockbrokers, market traders, circus performers and soapbox orators. His inventive representations of city life and the urban character of London embody his modernism, his synthesis of documentation and lyricism have influenced many, including Cecil Beaton, who named him The Master. 

Born in Germany in 1878, Hoppé was of English citizenship and actively worked from 1910 – 1945. He was the prototypical celebrity photographer, photographing the most famous of the time, and by 1913 his photographic operations occupied the 33-room Kensington House of the late Sir John Everett Millais. His work was widely exhibited in his lifetime and is held in collections at the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London amongst others. His work fell into obscurity after his retirement in 1945, locked into archives at the Mansell Collection London’s oldest picture library known only to a few photography scholars, curators and a handful of collectors. This is the first opportunity to view and purchase these unique vintage London prints by Hoppé. 

Guiding Light have published a book to accompany this exhibition.