Impressions of a writer: 40,000 photographs by Gerhard Roth available online

Gerhard Roth captured scenes from rural life in southern Styria – such as ‘Woazschälen’ (peeling potatoes) – both in his poetry and with his camera.

The Styrian author Gerhard Roth (1942-2022) was also active as a photographic artist. With his literary work, he left tens of thousands of photographs to the Franz Nabl Institute at the University of Graz during his lifetime. The majority of these have now been digitised and made accessible online.

Gerhard Roth's photographic legacy of around 60,000 images ranges from everyday scenes to abstract art images. The team at the Franz Nabl Institute at the University of Graz has made around 40,000 images from the years 1977 to 2017 available in a digital archive and labelled them with more than 200 keywords.

Roth captured life and customs in southern Styria with his camera, documented landscapes for research and memorial purposes and immortalised impressions from his trips to America, Egypt and Japan. Many of these photographs were published in the illustrated books "Atlas der Stille" and "Über Land und Meer". The publication "Im unsichtbaren Wien" shows the artist's extraordinary view of his second home. The volume "Spuren" contains abstract, sometimes alienated images of things that are usually overlooked, such as scratches, rust or small plays of light and shadow.

The digital photo archive, including information on Gerhard Roth and his works, can be accessed at gams.uni-graz.at/roth. Due to data protection restrictions, a password is required, which can be obtained from the collection manager daniela.bartens(at)uni-graz.at. On 28 October at 2pm, the project will also be presented at the Franz Nabl Institute in Elisabethstraße 30/1st floor.

An interview with Gerhard Roth from 2012 can be found in the UNIZEIT magazine

Günter Brus, photographed by Gerhard Roth around 1984, holding two mushrooms in his hand

Günter Brus was one of Gerhard Roth's friends and companions, whom he portrayed frequently - here around 1984.

abstract pattern of deeding tunnels of a bark beetle.

Later, Roth turned his lens on inconspicuous patterns and structures such as deeding tunnels of a bark beetle.

Dagmar Eklaude

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Digitales Fotoarchiv Gerhard Roth

Werk und Wirken

Literarisches Archiv von Gerhard Roth an der Universität Graz