The myths of Apollo and Daphne, Echo and Narcissus, the Minotaur, all narrated in Ovid’s fundamental tales The Metamorphoses, appear as underlying themes in List’s remarkable photographs, less in subject matter than as a result of the photographer’s modus operandi of shooting friends and lovers. Spanning from 1933 to 1958, these black and white photographs also instantly recall the myth of Pygmalion, a Cypriot sculptor, who carved a statue out of ivory that he found so beautiful and realistic he fell in love with it. Imploring Aphrodite to give him a bride in similar shape and form to his newly-created artwork, Pygmalion returned to his studio to find out that his sculpture had been miraculously brought to life. Parallels between the sculptor and his model become beautifully apparent in one image from 1949, where Swiss painter and model Rolf Duerig gracefully poses in front of an imposing Roman bust. Elsewhere, taking centre stage in the exhibition, is ‘Young man with laurel over the eyes’, 1936, an image which almost symbolically reenacts Daphne’s transformation into a laurel tree.

Born in Hamburg in 1903, Herbert List left Germany in 1936 to seek refuge from the rise of Nazism. Living between Paris and Athens from 1937, he settled in the Greek capital following the outbreak of World War II. He travelled extensively to the Peloponnese and the islands, seeking a highly personalized yet antiquity-inspired modernist depiction of Greece. Atmospheric light, radical crops and expressive perspectives shaped List’s vision of Greek architecture, artworks and men. His vision of Greece consists of subjective imagery rich in subtext and sensuality. It allows the viewer to feel, taste, and bathe in the atmosphere of List’s personal encounter with the Mediterranean.

The works on view were previously exhibited at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA) in 2019 as part of the exhibition The Body Observed.

Please book your appointment to view the in-person exhibition in London here.

Press release