Helga Paris

Helga Paris (née Steffens; 21 May 1938 – 5 February 2024) was a German photographer, known for her photographs of daily life in East Germany. She photographed theatre, and then turned to a series of people and streetscapes, such as Garbage Collectors, Berliner Kneipen (1975), Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (1981), self portraits, and houses and faces from Halle for an exhibition that was cancelled -after catalogues and posters had been printed- in 1986. Her works, shown internationally, received recognition especially after German reunification as documents of a past.

Life and career Helga Steffens, daughter of Gertrud Steffens and typesetter Wilhelm Steffens, was born just over a year before the outbreak of the Second World War in Gollnow, a small town then in the north of Germany. In May 1945, she celebrated her seventh birthday, while the war ended in defeat for Germany. Her father and two brothers were still away, but in the meantime frontier changes mandated by the victorious powers and large-scale ethnic cleansing forced Helga's mother to flee with her two daughters. They ended up in Zossen, a small town a little to the south of Berlin. There she was raised by a community of mostly women, many of whom worked. She was introduced to photography by her aunts who took many photographs.

In Zossen, she completed school successfully with the Abitur in 1956. She then studied fashion design at the School of Engineering for the Clothing Industry (Ingenieurschule für Bekleidungsindustrie) in Berlin until 1960. She undertook an internship at . She then worked briefly as a lecturer of costume studies at a trade school, She believed that much of her photographic passion and skill were acquired from two aunts who were enthusiastic photographers, constantly taking pictures from the 1940s through the 1960s, which Paris carefully preserved in a collection of show boxes adapted for the purpose. She documented social conditions in several series: Müllfahrer (Garbage collectors, 1974), They had two children. 1993 Grant from the Berlin Senate Administration for Science and Culture (Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft und Kultur) 2019 Culture Prize of the DGPH (German Society of Photography)

Catalogues Diva in Grau. Häuser und Gesichter in Halle. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 2000. New revised edition: 2006. Inka Schube (ed.): Helga Paris: Fotografien. texts by Jean Francois Chevier, Elke Erb, Helmut Brade, Helga Paris, Inka Schube. Holzwarth, Berlin 2004. (exhibition catalague, 318 p.). Hannah-Höch-Preis 2004: Helga Paris. Fotografien 1967–1996. Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 2004. (exhibition catalague, 31 p.). Agneta Maria Jilek: Metaphorik des Urbanen. Die Fotoserie Häuser und Gesichter Halle 1983–1985 von Helga Paris. In: Franziska Eißner, Michael Scholz-Hänsel (eds.): Armut in der Kunst der Moderne. Jonas Verlag, Marburg 2011. (ed.): Helga Paris, Fotografie. ifa, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen. Texts around Helga Paris. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2012. Leipzig Hauptbahnhof 1981/ 82. Spector Books, Leipzig 2020. Künstlerportraits. Spector Books, Leipzig 2021.