Resumen de Portrait de groupe et communauté d'amateurs
In 1899, the brothers, Théodore and Oscar Hofmeister realized the photographic portrait of three presidents of the Hamburg Society for the Encouragement of Amateur Photography, one of the principal pictorial clubs of the period. Unlike most portraits of groups of artists in the 19th century, they represent a scene of calm, measured and serious discussion centered on an image that one of them holds in his hand. A clue in this photograph reveals the models that inspired the Hofmeister brothers : the Portrait of the Members of the Association of Artists of Hamburg en 1840, painted by Günther Gensler. Now, in showing this symbolic heritage, the Hofmeister brothers demonstrate at the same time, the specificity of the Hamburg art scene in its relation with the civil society, founded on a liberal model of public space and on practices of deliberation.
