Born in 1920 in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he still lives and works.


In 1948, the Danish photographer Keld Helmer-Petersen became a pioneer in the use of colour photography when he published the modernist book 122 Colour Photographs, in which colour was form. Helmer-Petersen was already drawing inspiration from the Bauhaus and Albert Renger-Patzsch. Legendary magazine LIFE devoted seven pages to the book and its editor Wilson Hicks wrote enthusiastically about it.

Thanks to LIFE featuring his work, Keld Helmer-Petersen was able to go to the United States in 1950, where he enrolled at the famous New Bauhaus school in Chicago, which later became the Institute of Design. There he met many of the foremost American photographers, including Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Shortly after that, Keld Helmer-Petersen also began teaching at the school. In the 1950s he also took part in several international exhibitions, beginning with "Post-War European Photography" at MoMA in New York and "Subjektive Fotografie II" in Saarbrücken.

In Chicago Keld Helmer-Petersen developed a new style of minimalist, graphic black and white photography which became his trademark. In 1960 he was published for the first time in Fragments of the City. In Denmark he got involved in architecture and built ties with many of the best architects including Jörn Utzon, who designed the Sydney Opera House. But furniture designers and designers also loved working with Helmer-Petersen. In 1960 he started teaching at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen – first at the Institute of Visual Communication, and shortly after in the Department for Architecture. Since the 1950s he has also had his own studio and continued specialising in his two basic areas of minimalist output: black and white graphic work and colour photography. Today, at the age of 85, he is still active.


Keld Helmer-Petersen presented his work at the Rencontres d'Arles in 2005: Keld Helmer-Petersen at the Espace Van Gogh.