Beauté mortelle (2018) Photography by Christian Klein

Christian Klein, whose works were featured in galleries and publications from an early age, initially took a path that would have led him to become a pianist - he almost became a student of Chris Jarrett.

However, because of love, he gave his final concert at 19, setting him on a path that saw him put one passion aside in favor of another passion, photography.

He would never have dreamed that the charming lady for whom he made this decision - the woman at his side ever since - would one day share his passion and later work with him as a photographer herself.

The two of them have already appeared together on German television with a report about their work and have made a name for themselves, especially in the commercial sector, in which even large corporations trust when it comes to converting the emotions that make people buy into “small ones “colorful squares”.

Born at the beginning of the bright 70s, Klein absorbed the impressionistic, dreamy style of painting-like photographs early on, which revealed in a fairytale-like world what they were supposedly trying to save - beauty, youth and innocence.

Far from being able to understand as a child the suffering that human predators caused behind this sweet façade, Klein's artistic influence remained the feeling for transforming an essence of beauty and innocence into images that used exactly the stylistic devices of the time.

It's no wonder that Klein is often asked whether he was a student of David Hamilton, because nowadays if you look for his technique, the "Hamilton Blur", you will first find Klein's pictures.

How much Klein rejects Hamilton's attitude towards people is shown by the fact that he gratefully refrained from writing the chapter about the technology behind the "Hamilton Blur" in a book written by a close friend of Hamilton's.

For Klein, the Hamilton Blur is simply a stylistic device and not an expression of an attitude towards people.

The artist compares the ability to work in different photographic styles with his ability as a piano player to play a children's song in the style of, for example, Chopin, Rachmaninoff but also Beethoven, Bach or Debussy.

That's what makes it so natural for him to combine influences like Henri Cartier-Bresson on the one hand and the Impressionists on the other in one person.

How little the artist cares about what people want to impose on him from the outside is also shown by the fact that - like some other well-known artists - he often appears on set barefoot.

• Nationality: GERMANY
• Date of birth : 1970
• Artistic domains: Works by professional artists,
• Groups: Professional Artist Contemporary German Artists