Some 240 of the most original and important works by 150 artists have been selected from the largest private photographic collections of our time, owned by Germany's DG Bank and are published in this book.. In addition to classical photography, the photographic works of painters and sculptors are the focus of this collection, in which the diverse trends in contemporary art are concentrated and readily identifiable. Artists such as Gerhard Richter, Robert Rauschenberg, Magdalena Jetelov and John Chamberlain have regarded photography as an indispensable supplement to their own pictorial language. However photography is also employed in conjunction with new media by such artists as Anton Corbijn, Valie Export and Marie-Jo Lafontaine. John Baldessari and Barbara Kruger use photography to examine the mass media critically. Examples of digital techniques and conceptual movements complement this collection.