Anders Petersen: Café Lehmitz

Located in Hamburg’s red-light district, the Café Lehmitz was a meeting point for prostitutes, pimps, transvestites, thugs and criminals. Anders Petersen (Stockholm, 1944) was eighteen years old when he arrived to Hamburg and found the Café Lehmitz almost by chance. There, he stablished friendships that would mark him for years. In 1968 he returned to the Lehmitz, he met new clients, made contacts and started taking photographs. These images, published in 1978 for the first time, have since become classics in their genre.

Disturbingly honest and authentic, devoid of voyeurism and false sympathy, Petersen’s images remind of Brassaï’s way of looking. The Café Lehmitz no longer exists, but that distinct world, that so-called asocial environment, reveals its cohesion and dignity in the pages of this publication.

In 2008 Anders Petersen received the Dr. Erich Salomon Award, for outstanding use of photography in press. He currently lives and works in Stockholm.