The German photographer Evelyn Hofer was an expert of the group photo. A retrospective of her work at the Photographers’ Gallery in London shows her remarkable ability to capture the energy of multiple subjects in a thoughtful, patiently composed image. In “Orphans, Dublin, 1966”, two brothers sit with pained looks beside their smiling caretaker. In “The Mid-Rhondda Workmen’s Band perform an open-air concert, 1964”, seated members of a brass band blow their horns in front of an industrial town, with a bandleader towering over them. Another photographer might over-egg the scene. But from the right distance, Hofer is able to find a balance between the parts and the whole.

The Photographers’ Gallery show also includes some clever pairings: portraits of two young Dublin mods hang next to a photo of a pair of seminarians on bicycles. “Place des Vosges” (1967), one of Hofer’s most captivating and impressionistic photos on display, is a Parisian park scene and a complex group shot of children rushing between rows of pollarded trees. In another, a trio of gravediggers stand erect with their shovels leaning against the ground, invoking the interplay between those (living) upright and those lying in the graves.

Hofer, who died in 2009, still hasn’t received the same level of recognition as her (mainly male) photographer contemporaries. Seeing her Washington, DC photos on display, it’s difficult to understand why she’s been passed over. There’s a talent that comes with an outsider’s appraisal of American political life. With Hofer, we get a leather-booted motorcycle cop sitting astride his machine under a cherry tree; a civil servant poised on anonymous linoleum flooring of a grand government building — the texture and aesthetics of democracy’s machinations brought to life.

A woman in thick-rimmed oval spectacles looks straight ahead with an intense gaze
Evelyn Hofer, ‘Self-Portrait, New York, 1960s’

Hofer was well travelled. She grew up in Germany, trained as a photographer in Switzerland and made her early pictures in Madrid. She photographed artists’ studios and made exquisite architectural work while living in New York and her work took a move towards poignant, luxuriantly gloomy still life while she lived out her final years in Mexico City. The carefully arranged bowls of lemons and assemblages of paint cans from Hofer’s late period remarkably echo her group portraiture.

While Hofer’s photographs were overwhelmingly shot outside the studio, it would be a misnomer to call this work street photography. Their compositions are all exquisitely lined up, with very little left to chance. Yet Hofer spent much of her career shooting discerning and often elegant photos of cities and the people living in them. That includes, notably, collaborations with critic Mary McCarthy, as part of a book on Florence, and with VS Pritchett on book projects about London, New York and Dublin.

Four women in crisp, smart clothing of the 1960s sit or stand under a tree in a suburban setting
Hofer’s ‘Secretaries in Rawlings Park, Washington, 1965’

Her work is often associated with the legacy of German New Objectivity, a strand of naturalistic art that rejected the Romantic ideals of expressionism in the 1920s. In particular, Hofer’s work bears a strong connection to the photographer August Sander, who was famous for his long-running portrait series People of the 20th Century. 

But Hofer’s deviation from Sanders’ ethnographic project is just as interesting. For one thing, her photos don’t display the same completist impulse. Although there’s a studied quality to the images that she makes, she doesn’t set out to provide anything like a comprehensive typology. Indeed, there’s an interiority at work, more dramatic yet more serene than many of her documentary peers. “In reality, all we photographers photograph is ourselves in the other, all the time,” goes her often-repeated quote. 

A man wearing military uniform stands close to a woman; both are smiling gently
‘Soldier in Uniform with Girlfriend, New York, 1974’

Even Hofer’s editorial and more commercially-minded work on display has a weighty humanism to it. For Life magazine, Hofer shot a series of newly-weds (Just Married, 1974) with a quiet humour, emphasising slightly awkward, uncertain marital bliss without succumbing to satire or prodding cruelty. In one photo that possesses an incredible chemistry, a man in army uniform stands with his body cocked towards his partner with an indecipherable gaze; she poses with her mouth slightly open, as if about to speak to him. It’s Hofer’s ability to etch out these subtle dynamics between her subjects that make the images so lasting.

To September 24, thephotographersgallery.org.uk