Thomas Hoepker, the renowned German photographer, has died at the age of 88.
He was known for his pictures of Muhammad Ali, the Berlin Wall, and a controversial image of onlookers in Brooklyn seemingly unbothered by the smoke of the Twin Towers on 9/11 in the distance. His death was confirmed by Magnum Photos, the international photography collective that began publishing his photos in 1964 and which he joined in 1989. No cause of death was given.
A longtime associate of the prestigious group, even serving as president from 2003 to 2006, Hoepker began his career as a photojournalist and developed a reputation as a premier documentary photographer.
His work took him from Europe to Asia, South America and the United States, where he developed a close friendship and collaboration with Ali. But he is perhaps most famous for an image from 11 September 2001, of young New Yorkers seemingly lounging next to the East Village as the Twin Towers burn behind them.
The photograph, which Hoepker did not publish until 2006, became both an iconic and controversial image from the tragedy. The critic and columnist Frank Rich wrote about it in the New York Times, calling it a troubling allegory of America’s failure to learn anything from the tragedy. “The young people in Mr Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous,” he wrote. “They’re just American.”
Rich’s view of the photo was disputed; Walter Sipser, one of the men in the photo, later said he and his girlfriend were in fact “in a profound state of shock and disbelief“ and that Hoepker misrepresented their feelings and behavior.
Hoepker himself defended the photo as evidence of ambiguous, confusing horror on that day. “I think the image has touched many people exactly because it remains fuzzy and ambiguous in all its sun-drenched sharpness,” he wrote in Slate in 2006. “On that day five years ago, sheer horror came to New York, bright and colorful like a Hitchcock movie. And the only cloud in that blue sky was the sinister first smoke signal of a new era.”
Born in Munich, Germany, on 10 June 1936, Hoepker first began taking photographs at the age of 14, after his grandfather gave him a plate camera for his birthday. Hoepker studied art, history and archaeology in Göttengen, partly funded by his photographs, but left before graduation to work as a photojournalist for Münchner Illustrierte magazine in 1960. “I didn’t study photography – I just did it. The academic world was not my world,” he said.
He went on to work for the magazine Kristall and joined Stern in 1964. That same year, Magnum began distributing his archive photographs.
Hoepker and his first wife, Eva Windmöller, lived in East Berlin as Stern’s first accredited correspondents. They moved to New York City in 1976, where Hoepker then spent the bulk of his time. He also served as the director of photography for American Geo from 1978 to 1981, as well as the art director for Stern in Hamburg from 1987 to 1989.
Hoepker continued to reside in New York with his second wife, Christine Kruchen, producing documentary films. The 2022 film Dear Memories: A Journey with Magnum Photographer Thomas Hoepker, chronicled his and Kruchen’s roadtrip across America after his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease. He published his final book, The Way It Was, that same year.
“I am not an artist,” he said. “I am an image maker.”
