The Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl Collection of European Women Photographers

The book explores the collection of photo-based art by European women photographers from Yto Barrada to Shirana Shahbazi, belonging to Texas-based philanthropist Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl.

The collection is one of the largest of its kind and comprises 220 works by nearly 90 emerging and established women photographers from 17 countries in Western and Eastern Europe. The artworks cover the period between 2000 and 2020.

The selection from Haukohl's collection questions notions of nation, identity, and gender, with a particular emphasis on representations of the body and associated themes of beauty, femininity, and objectification.

The artists, including Yto Barrada, Uta Barth, Carolle Bénitah, Melanie Bonajo, Vanessa Beecroft, Valerie Berlin, Natalie Czech, Eva Ko?átková, Vera Lutter, Josephine Pryde, and Shirana Shahbazi, employ various materials and conceptual approaches to expand understandings of womanhood, Europe (often in the context of the legacy of Soviet rule), and the medium of photography itself.