Christer Strömholm
Christer Strömholm (July 22, 1918 – January 11, 2002), also known by the pseudonym Christer Christian, was a Swedish photographer and educator. He is known for his intimate black and white street photography portrait series, particularly his portraits of transgender women in Paris. Strömholm received the 1997 Hasselblad Award. Life and career. Strömholm was born in Vaxholm, Sweden, to Lizzie Strömholm and Fredrik Strömholm, an army officer. His childhood was marked by family instability. The family moved frequently, and in 1924 his parents divorced, but remarried shortly thereafter. In 1934, Strömholm's father committed suicide. Beginning in 1933, Strömholm  was active in the Nazi Nordic Youth movement, modelled after Hitler Youth. He led one of its cells during this time, and in 1936 hoisted a flag of a swastika on the People's House in Stockholm. Over the course of his young adulthood, however, his political perspective changed; he joined the Swedish Volunteer Corps at the age of 21, and supported the Norwegian resistance movement later in the war. In 1937 Strömholm travelled to Dresden to study art under the German painter . However, he came into conflict with Paul Klee and other Bauhaus artists, and his stay in Dresden  was brief. Strömholm was a member of Otto Steinert's Fotoform group of photographers for subjective photography. He co-founded Fotoskolan academy in Stockholm in 1962 and was its director. Alumni of the school include production designer Anna Asp, cinematographer Bille August, and photographers Anders Petersen, Björn Dawidsson (Dawid), and Gunnar Smoliansky. He is noted for his depictions of transsexual women in the Place Blanche area of 1950-1960s' Paris, published as "Les amies de Place Blanche". The critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in "The Guardian", said he "is known as the father of Swedish photography both for his abiding influence  and for his role as a teacher." In 1998 Strömholm received the 1997 Hasselblad Award. The award citation described him as "one of Scandinavia's leading photographers, and [...] the first post-war photographer to gain international renown". External links. "Note: This article contains content from the Swedish-language edition of Wikipedia"