Fritz Henle
Encyclopedia
Fritz Henle was a photographer, known as "Mr. Rollei" for his use of the 2.25" square format film used in the Rolleiflex
camera.
Henle was born in Dortmund
, Germany
in 1909 and died in Saint Croix
, U.S. Virgin Islands
in 1993. Called, "the last classic freelance photographer" by photohistorian, Helmut Gernsheim
, Henle's career spanned more than 60 years, during which he amassed an archive of more than 110,000 negatives, representing images of Europe
, India
, Japan
, Hawaii
, USA
, Mexico
, and the Caribbean
. Henle worked with fashion, portrait, travel and industrial subjects and his work was published by Life
, Mademoiselle
, and Harper's Bazaar
magazines.
The exhibition "Fritz Henle: In Search of Beauty" celebrated the art of the photographer and the centenary of his birth. The exhibition ran from February 3 through August 2, 2009, at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
at The University of Texas at Austin.
Rolleiflex
Rolleiflex is the name of a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei-Werk. The "Rolleiflex" name is most commonly used to refer to Rollei's premier line of medium format twin lens reflex cameras...
camera.
Henle was born in Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in 1909 and died in Saint Croix
Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Saint Croix is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States. Formerly the Danish West Indies, they were sold to the United States by Denmark in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies of...
, U.S. Virgin Islands
United States Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands of the United States are a group of islands in the Caribbean that are an insular area of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles.The U.S...
in 1993. Called, "the last classic freelance photographer" by photohistorian, Helmut Gernsheim
Helmut Gernsheim
Helmut Erich Robert Kuno Gernsheim was a renowned historian of photography, collector, and photographer.-Biography:Born in Munich, Germany, Gernsheim studied art history at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich...
, Henle's career spanned more than 60 years, during which he amassed an archive of more than 110,000 negatives, representing images of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, and the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. Henle worked with fashion, portrait, travel and industrial subjects and his work was published by Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
, Mademoiselle
Mademoiselle (magazine)
Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
, and Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
magazines.
The exhibition "Fritz Henle: In Search of Beauty" celebrated the art of the photographer and the centenary of his birth. The exhibition ran from February 3 through August 2, 2009, at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
The Harry Ransom Center is a library and archive at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the United States and Europe. The Ransom Center houses 36 million literary manuscripts, 1 million rare books, 5 million photographs, and more...
at The University of Texas at Austin.
Books
- Fritz Henle's Guide to Rollei Photography (1956)
- The Caribbean; a Journey With Pictures, Fritz Henle and P. E. Knapp (1957)
- Fritz Henle: In Search of Beauty, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Roy Flukinger and Fritz Henle (2009) ISBN 978-0-292-71972-9