Between the 1960s and 1990s, sport played an important role in Wuppertal's local press. The Westdeutsche Zeitung in particular was a central medium for sports reporting. In addition to traditional match reports, it also published photographic reports and background stories documenting the city's sporting life. Kurt Keil's particular passion was sports photography: he captured numerous Wuppertaler SV matches and unique visits by prominent athletes.

Kurt Keil shaped the visual image of sport in Wuppertal

From the opening of the Uni-Halle in 1987 with a tennis tournament attended by Steffi Graf and personalities such as coach Ion Țiriac, to visits from football stars such as Günther Netzer and international guests such as Californian Mark Spitz for the inauguration of the swimming opera in 1981 - they were all captured through Kurt Keil's lens for the Westdeutsche Zeitung. As a result, his pictures shaped the visual image of sport in the local press and the historical image of Wuppertal's sporting culture for decades.

Over a period of almost 50 years, the late press photographer Kurt Keil (1940-2020) photographed events in Wuppertal. The resulting collection now comprises more than 500,000 negatives as well as countless prints and newspaper cuttings. The pictures show both special events and everyday scenes from Wuppertal's city history. In 2021, Keil's estate was transferred to the Wuppertal University Archive.

The estate is the subject of courses

Students at the University of Wuppertal have been studying the estate since the winter semester 2023/24. In various courses, they learn how to make such extensive material accessible in a practice-oriented way - from initial viewing, cataloguing and archiving to curating exhibitions. The aim is to familiarise students with archive work and especially with working with and researching photographic material.