FOTOFORM

group of photographers in Germany after World War II. Headed by Otto Steinert (b. 1915), a physician who abandoned medicine for photography, the group reexplored the photographic techniques developed at the Bauhaus, the most advanced school of design in Germany between World Wars I and II. The first Fotoform exhibits in Milan and Cologne (both 1950) emphasized abstract form derived from patterns found in nature and from darkroom manipulation of the image. Photographs stressing abstract form had been unknown in Germany since the Nazis closed the Bauhaus in 1933, and the Fotoform exhibition was a sensation. Steinert, however, felt that the format of the Fotoform shows had been too limited. At the group's remaining three exhibitions, which he titled Subjektive Fotographie, he accepted any photograph, from the nonobjective photogram to literal reportage, that was aesthetically satisfying and bore the imprint of profound individual creativity. Nevertheless, most contributors continued to submit nonobjective photographs. Feeling that the once revolutionary style of Fotoform had become a rigid formula, Steinert abandoned Fotoform after the 1958 exhibition. The Fotoform style, however, continued to influence photographers and designers worldwide.