Temps de Vacances

Digging for Diamonds

Photography

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Thomas Billhardt ITALY + DDR + USSR

Thomas Billhardt, born in 1937 in Chemnitz, is a German photographer and publicist. He became especially well known in the GDR because of his photographs from Vietnam and Palestine. From 1959 to 1963 he took on a degree at the »Hochschule für Graphik und Buchkunst (HGB)« in Leipzic which he completed as a qualified photographic artist. In 1962 he joined the »Verband deutscher Journalisten« (German journalists’ assosiaction) and worked as a freelance photographer from 1963 to 1971. He became a member of the Socialist Union Party of Germany in 1968. From 1972 to 1981 Billhardt was manager of a work group with the »Deutsche Werbeagentur« (DEWAG) in Berlin and manager of Billhardt studios with the publisher for agitation and illustrative material from 1982 to 1989. Since 1990 Billhardt is a member of the »Deutscher Journalistenverband« and from 1990 up until 2001 he was also a member of the »Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie« (German society for photography). From 1990 he joined the » Bund Freischaffender Foto-Designer e.V.«. In 1969 Billhardt received the Award of Arts of the GDR, in 1987 the national award of the GDR. He staged countless international photograph exhibitions, including the UNICEF exhibition »Children of the World« in New York in 1989. Billhardt envisions himself as an artistic rather than a political photographer.

Thomas Billhardt resides in Italy and in Berlin.

thomasbillhardt.de