Tata Ronkholz Committee

The Tata Ronkholz Committee (f.l.t.r.): Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Stefan Gronert, Barbara Hofmann-Johnson, Renate Goldmann (Director of Van Ham Art Estate)

On 31 August 2018, the scientific committee for the estate of the photographer Tata Ronkholz (1940 - 1997) was founded under the direction of Dr. Renate Goldmann, consisting of the following renowned experts: Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Head of the Photographic Collection / SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne; Dr Stefan Gronert, Curator of Photography and Media at the Sprengel Museum Hannover; Barbara Hofmann-Johnson, Director of the Museum für Photographie Braunschweig.

 

Tata Ronkholz was one of the first students of the Becher class and the Düsseldorf School of Photography. In 1977 she began her basic studies at the State Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, from 1978 in Bernd Becher's photography class. Until 1985, she produced groups of works on Kiosks, Industrial Gates and, in collaboration with Thomas Struth, on the Rhine Harbour in Düsseldorf.

In annual meetings, the committee will advise on the academic discourse on Tata Ronkholz, the inventory and recording of the collection and the publication of a catalogue raisonné.
Van Ham Art Auctions has been managing the estate of Tata Ronkholz since 2001, which contributed significantly to the decision to establish the Van Ham Art Estate department in 2011. In addition to prints and negatives, the estate includes an archive of documents, correspondence and private photographs.

 

The committee:

Gabriele Conrath-Scholl has been the director of the Photographic Collection / SK Stiftung Kultur since 2007 and a member of the board of the DGPH (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie e.V.) since 2016. She studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and worked as a research assistant at the Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur from 1996 to 2007. She is responsible for numerous exhibitions and publications on August Sander, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Boris Becker, Joachim Brohm, Jim Dine, Judith Joy Ross and Wilhelm Schürmann.

Stefan Gronert holds a doctorate in art history and has been Curator of Photography and Media Art at the Sprengel Museum Hannover since May 2016. Previously, he was curator for contemporary art at the Kunstmuseum Bonn for many years. He has written numerous publications on modern art, especially modern and contemporary art, e.g. monographs on Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Jeff Wall, the Düsseldorf School of Photography and Alexej Jawlensky. He is a specialist editor of the online review journal sehpunkte. Stefan Gronert has lectured at the Universities of Bonn, Cologne and Osnabrück as well as the Universities of Fine Arts in Dresden and Braunschweig. He has also curated more than fifty exhibitions in European and North American art museums and given numerous lectures.

Barbara Hofmann-Johnson studied art history, German studies and theatre, film and television studies at the University of Cologne. She has been Director of the Museum für Photographie in Braunschweig since autumn 2016. From 2003 to 2016, she curated numerous projects and worked as a freelancer at the Photographic Collection/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archive in Cologne. In 2018, she curated the exhibition ‘Bernd, Hilla and the Others - Photography from Düsseldorf’ at Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography in Amsterdam. She has also taught curatorial practice in the field of photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen (2012-2016), the Braunschweig University of Art (2017-2018) and the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf (2018) and has published numerous books on 20th and 21st century photography.