Erich Hartmann (photographer)
Encyclopedia
Life in Germany
Erich Hartmann, was born 29 July 1922 in Munich, Germany, the eldest child of parents who lived in PassauPassau
Passau is a town in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the Dreiflüssestadt or "City of Three Rivers," because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north....
, a small city on the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
near the Austrian border in which they were one of a five Jewish families. Erich Hartmann's family belonged to the middle class, and his father, a social-democrat who served during World War I and been imprisoned by the British, was highly respected. In 1930, only eight years old, Erich took his first photographs.
Life became increasingly difficult after the Nazi takeover in 1933, including personal, financial, business, and family restrictions and the beginning of deportations of Jews to the first so-called 'labor camp' in the nearby village of Dachau
Dachau
Dachau is a town in Upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town—a Große Kreisstadt—of the administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about 20 km north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich with roughly 40,000 inhabitants...
.
In 1938, two days after the assassination in Paris of German diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
, Ernst vom Rath
Ernst vom Rath
Ernst Eduard vom Rath was a German diplomat, remembered for his assassination in Paris in 1938 by a Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan. The assassination triggered Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass"....
(November 7), skillfully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence occurred all over Germany. In the early hours of November 10, coordinated destruction broke out in cities, towns and villages throughout the Third Reich. In a single night, Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
(literally Night of Crystal) synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
s were destroyed, and Jewish businesses and homes ransacked and their windows systematically broken (hence the expression crystal). In August, Erich's family accepted the opportunity to immigrate to the United States, with an affidavit from distant relatives in Albany, New York.
Early Photographic Work
The only English speaker in the family, Erich Hartmann worked in a textile mill, in Albany, New YorkAlbany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
, attending evening high school and later taking night courses at Siena College
Siena College
Siena College is an independent Roman Catholic liberal arts college in Loudonville, in the town of Colonie, New York, United States. Siena is a four-year, coeducational, independent college in the Franciscan tradition, founded by the Franciscan Friars in 1937. It has 3,000 full-time students and...
where he earned his bachelor's degree.
On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, the US entered the war, and Erich enlisted in the US Army. Trained in Virginia and Ohio, he had to wait until 1943 before serving in England, Belgium and France (the Normandy Landings), and with the liberating forces as a court interpreter at Nazi trials in Cologne, Germany. At the end of the war he moved to New York City where, in 1946, he married Ruth Bains; they had two children, Nicholas (born in 1952) and Celia (born in 1956). During these years, he worked as an assistant to a portrait photographer and then as a freelancer. He studied at the New School for Social Research with Charles Leirens, Berenice Abbott
Berenice Abbott
Berenice Abbott , born Bernice Abbott, was an American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s.-Youth:...
and Alexey Brodovitch
Alexey Brodovitch
Alexey Brodovitch was a Russian-born photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar from 1938 to 1958.- Early life in Russia :...
. His portrait subjects over the years included architect Walter Gropius
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
, writers Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
and Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....
, musicians Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
and Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...
, actor Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime most famous for his persona as Bip the Clown.-Early years:...
, and many others. Music played a great role in his life and work: "Music captured me before photography did, he recalled. "In my parents' house there was not much music except for a hand-cranked gramophone on which I surreptitiously and repeatedly played a record of arias from "Carmen". This was before I could read!"
In the 1950s Hartmann first became known to the wider public for his poetic approach to science, industry and architecture in a series of photo essays for Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
magazine, beginning with The Deep North, The Building of Saint Lawrence Seaway and Shapes of Sound. He later did similar essays on the poetics of science and technology for French, German and American Geo
GEO (magazine)
GEO is a family of educational monthly magazines similar to the National Geographic magazine. It is known for its profound reports, which are accompanied by opulent pictures.The first edition appeared in Germany in 1976...
and other magazines. Throughout his life he traveled widely on assignments for the major magazines of the US, Europe and Japan and for many corporations such as IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Nippon Airways, Citroën
Citroën
Citroën is a major French automobile manufacturer, part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group.Founded in 1919 by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën , Citroën was the first mass-production car company outside the USA and pioneered the modern concept of creating a sales and services network that...
, Citibank
Citibank
Citibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York...
, Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
, Ford, Schlumberger
Schlumberger
Schlumberger Limited is the world's largest oilfield services company. Schlumberger employs over 110,000 people of more than 140 nationalities working in approximately 80 countries...
for which he mainly used color. Invited in 1952 to join Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
, the international photographers’ cooperative founded in 1947 by Robert Capa
Robert Capa
Robert Capa was a Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist who covered five different wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War...
, David Seymour
David Seymour
Chim was the pseudonym of David Seymour , a Polish photographer and photojournalist. Born Dawid Szymin in Warsaw to Polish Jewish parents, he became interested in photography while studying in Paris...
, George Rodger
George Rodger
George Rodger was a British photojournalist noted for his work in Africa and for taking the first photographs of the death camps at Bergen-Belsen at the end of the Second World War....
and Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
, he served on the Board of Directors from 1967 to 1986, and as President in 1985-1986.
Photojournalism and Essays
His first solo exhibition Sunday with the Bridge, studies of Brooklyn Bridge, opened at the Museum of the City of New YorkMuseum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City, USA and its people...
in 1956. In 1962, his book and exhibition Our Daily Bread toured widely around the United States. Many more exhibits followed over the years, in the United States, Japan, and throughout Europe. He lectured at the Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria, at the Syracuse University School of Journalism, among others, taught at workshops and seminars, and received commendations including the Photokina
Photokina
The photokina is the world's largest trade fair for the photographic and imaging industries. The first photokina was held in Cologne, Germany, in 1950, and it is now held biannually in September at the koelnmesse Trade Fair and Exhibition Centre...
award (Cologne, Germany), the CRAF International Award (Italy), the Newhouse Citation in Photography (US) and numerous Art Directors Club awards.
His principal interest, in photography as in life, was the way in which people relate both to their natural surroundings and to the environments they create. Our Daily Bread and The World of Work were continuing long-term projects. He documented not only industry and technology – glass-making, boat-building, farming, food production, aviation, construction, space exploration, scientific research - but also the human cultural and geographical context: Shakespeare's England, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's Dublin or Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
's Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
.
One of his most penetrating and poignant work however, explores a vision of the emptiness that can lie within the worlds that human beings make for themselves, as exemplified in his photographs in a mannequin factory crowded with insensate yet suffering faces.
This concern with dehumanization led him undertake in his late years a very personal and intimate project that transcended memory.
In The Camps
Auschwitz, Bełżec, Bergen-BelsenBergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
, Birkenau, Buchenwald
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
, Bullenhuser Damm
Bullenhuser Damm
Bullenhuser Damm School is located at 92–94 Bullenhuser Damm, a street in the Rothenburgsort section of Hamburg, Germany. During heavy air raids many portions of Hamburg were destroyed including the Rothenburgsort section which received heavy damage. The school was only partly damaged. By 1943 the...
, Chełmno, Dachau, Emsland
Emsland
Landkreis Emsland is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany named after the river Ems. It is bounded by the districts of Leer, Cloppenburg and Osnabrück, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia , the district of Bentheim and the Netherlands .- History :For a long time the region of the Emsland was...
, Belower Wald, Gross Rosen
Gross-Rosen concentration camp
KL Gross-Rosen was a German concentration camp, located in Gross-Rosen, Lower Silesia . It was located directly on the rail line between Jauer and Striegau .-The camp:...
, Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
, Mauthausen
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
, Natzweiler
Natzweiler-Struthof
Natzweiler-Struthof was a German concentration camp located in the Vosges Mountains close to the Alsatian village of Natzwiller in France, and the town of Schirmeck, about 50 km south west from the city of Strasbourg....
, Neuengamme, Ravensbrück
Ravensbrück concentration camp
Ravensbrück was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück ....
, Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
, Sobibor
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
, Theresienstadt
Theresienstadt concentration camp
Theresienstadt concentration camp was a Nazi German ghetto during World War II. It was established by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín , located in what is now the Czech Republic.-History:The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders...
, Treblinka
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
, Vught, Westerbork... Unspeakable journey to the End of the Night. For more than eight weeks, Erich and Ruth Hartmann undertook a long and rough winter journey to photograph the mute and horrifying remains of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps, and places of deportation, throughout Europe. Hartmann had only one decision to follow: black and white photographs only to capture what he sees, immediately when arriving, no matter whether days looked like nights.
In the late 1990s Hartmann began make a definitive selection from fifty years of this personal work, and just a few months before his death he began discussions with a gallery in Austria about developing an exhibition called Where I Was. He died unexpectedly on 4 February 1999, but his wife decided to continue the task of defining and preparing the pictures, and the show opened at Galerie Fotohof in Salzburg on 27 June 2000:"Different from most posthumous exhibits, writes Ruth Hartmann, the beginning, the idea and impetus for this came from the photographer himself in his lifetime and has been realized by others attempting to continue the idea in accordance with his notes.
"Where I was" was not always a specific geographic spot; it was often a frame of mind, as when he found the mannequin factory and saw there a simple and seemingly innocent metaphor for the dehumanizing horrors of our time. (...) These are personal pictures of a busy working photo-journalist, traveling all the time; home briefly in between. Although much of his assigned work was in color, he was never without a camera loaded with black and white film and a small box of extra rolls, which he used to capture what intrigued and fascinated him always: life in progress, people in their environments, enigmatic, unfinished, ambitious. His devotion to photography was lifelong and intense; he saw pictures everywhere. Taking these personal pictures kept his own course steady even as he worked, with equal devotion, on widely varying assignments which often bred new passions and fascinations, as evidenced in his involvement with the intricate beauties of technology. Some of these pictures here come from such assignments. He was There, too."
"I have earned my living as a magazine photographer and photojournalist, says Hartmann, working in many parts of the world for major magazines and businesses, often on subjects of general interest and most often on topics having to do with high technology. Alongside and intertwined with that photographic life has been another, an exploration mainly of aspects of my middle-class (and now late middle-age) self and some of the forces that had an effect on it. I have chosen autobiography as main theme of my personal work for more than one reason. I believe that I can speak most convincingly of what I have known the longest if perhaps not the best, I have derived from seemingly everyday aspects of an outwardly quiet and undramatic life an endless and rich source of challenge, and I am tempted to believe that the results resonate beyond the specific and personal and speak for other lives as well."
On February 4, 1999 Erich Hartmann died unexpectedly from a heart attack in New York.
Exhibitions
- 2009 Erich Hartmann - Clair Gallery, Munich, Germany
- 2008 A Place in Maine - Magnum Gallery, Paris, France
- 2007 Music Makers - United World College of the AdriaticUnited World College of the AdriaticUnited World College of the Adriatic is a part of the United World Colleges, a global educational movement that brings together students from all over the world – selected on personal merit, irrespective of race, religion, politics and the ability to pay – with the explicit aim of fostering peace...
, Duino, Italy - 2007 Mannequin Factory - Ikona Gallery, Venice, Italy
- 2006 Writing with Light - Atlas Gallery, London, UK
- 2005 Writing with Light - Artefact Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland
- 2005 Dublin 1964 - Memphis in May - Robinson Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, US
- 2004 Dublin 1964 - Gallery of Photography, Dublin, Ireland
- 2004 Security, Privilege and Freedom: A Transatlantic Crossing on Queen Elizabeth South Street SeaportSouth Street SeaportThe South Street Seaport is a historic area in the New York City borough of Manhattan, located where Fulton Street meets the East River, and adjacent to the Financial District. The Seaport is a designated historic district, distinct from the neighboring Financial District...
Museum, New York, US - 2000-2002 Where I Was - Fotohof, Salzburg, Austria; Leica Gallery, New York, US; Sankt Anna Kapelle, Passau, Germany; Jewish Museum, Munich, Germany; Leica Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
- 1995-2008 In the Camps, Arc de TriompheArc de Triomphe-The design:The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin , in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture . Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire...
, Paris, France; Goethe House, New York, US; Leica Gallery, New York, US; NGBK Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Kunsthaus, Hamburg, Germany; St. Anna Kapelle, Passau, Germany; National Monument, Camp Vught, Netherlands; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy ; Villa Cian, Spilimbergo, Italy; Sala San Leonardo, Venice, Italy and other venues in US and Europe - 1991 High Technology - shown in Berlin and Bonn in Germany and at other venues in Europe
- 1989 Musicians at Work - Lockenhaus Music Festival, Austria
- 1988 Veritas - Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, US
- 1987 Washington - Magnum Gallery, Paris, France
- 1985 The Heart of Technology - Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Tokyo
- 1984 Erich Hartmann Slept Here - Residenz Gallery, Salzburg
- 1983 Macroworld - Olympus Galleries in Paris, Hamburg, Tokyo, London
- 1982 Train Journey - French Cultural Institute, New York ;numerous other venues in the US ; Paris, Tokyo, Hamburg
- 1982 Europe in Space - The Photographers' Gallery, London. UK;
- 1978 A Play of Light - Neikrug Gallery, New York, US
- 1977 Photographs with a Laser - AIGA Gallery, New York, US ; Fiolet Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 1976 Carnet de Route & Natures Mortes - Photogalerie, Paris, France
- 1971 Mannequin Factory - Underground Gallery, New York, US; Fiolet Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands;
- 1962 Our Daily Bread - The Coliseum, New York, US; Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., US; numerous other venues in the US
- 1956 Sunday with the Bridge - Museum of the City of New YorkMuseum of the City of New YorkThe Museum of the City of New York is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City, USA and its people...
, US; Brooklyn MuseumBrooklyn MuseumThe Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
, New York, US
Awards
- PhotokinaPhotokinaThe photokina is the world's largest trade fair for the photographic and imaging industries. The first photokina was held in Cologne, Germany, in 1950, and it is now held biannually in September at the koelnmesse Trade Fair and Exhibition Centre...
Award, Cologne, Germany - International Award from Centro di Ricerca e Archiviazione della Fotografia, Spilimbergo, Italy
- The Newhouse Medal from Syracuse University
- The Art DirectorArt directorThe art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
's Club Prize
Books
- 2000 Where I Was, Otto Muller Verlag, Austria
- 1995 In The Camps, W.W. Norton Company US; UK; Dans le silence des camps, La Martinière, France; Stumme Zeugen : Photographien aus konzentrazionslagern, Lambert Schneider, Germany; Il Silenzio dei campi, Contrasto, Italy
- 1972 Space: Focus Earth, The European Space Research Organization and Arcade, US; L'Europe des satellites, hommes et techniques, Arcade, France
- 1965 About OXO, Spectator Publications, US