Erwin Quedenfeldt

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Erwin Quedenfeldt, self-portrait, in light drawings, 1919

Erwin Quedenfeldt (born June 19, 1869 in Essen ; † March 8, 1948 in Bischofswiesen ), also spelled Quedenfeld in literature , was a doctor of German photo chemist , photographer and inventor.

Live and act

Little is known about Quedenfeldt's early life. He studied at the University of Kiel , the professional chemistry where he received his doctorate 1896th In 1897 he married Emma Rohde, the daughter of a coffee importer. He then worked in the photochemical industry. In 1900 he developed a capsule flash with compressed flash powder and received a patent for it. He invented the household lamp base with screw thread, pressed lightning powder, the fuse and the electric ignition. From 1903 to 1921 he headed a photography school in Düsseldorf , the "Rheinische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt für Photography". Hanna Seewald was a student here from 1920 to 1921 . From 1905 he took numerous photographs of medieval buildings on the Lower Rhine , which he offered from 1909 to 1915 under the titles Baukunst am Niederrhein and individual images of the Lower Rhine in catalogs and by subscription . He documented the villages and landscapes around Düsseldorf in more than 1600 self-published and mounted on cardboard bromide silver pictures. He left a complete series to the Düsseldorf State and City Library .

Around 1910 Quedenfeldt developed the photomechanical Erwinotype art printing process patented for him .

Like many artists of his time, Quedenfeldt was politically radical after the First World War. He was an important member of the "Aktivistenbund 1919" co-founded by Adolf Uzarski and Herbert Eulenberg , a left-wing artist community that cooperated with the young Rhineland artist group and the anarcho-syndicalists . At that time, Düsseldorf was a stronghold of the anarcho-syndicalist movement. The Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) had up to 20,000 members here at times.

Quedenfeldt was chairman of the Düsseldorf Monistenbund (1917/1918).

Avant-garde artists such as Gert Wollheim , Otto Pankok and other protagonists of the Düsseldorf scene met in the house of his wife Emma at Rosenstrasse 28 in Pempelfort , where Quedenfeldt also exhibited the work of others in his photo studio . In 1923 Quedenfeldt left Düsseldorf after a personal crisis. From 1928 he worked with Hermann Schiebert in Vienna .

After 1931 he lived in Austria without a permanent residence. In 1938 he went into hiding because of his son Harald , who was a stage designer by profession and was active in the resistance against National Socialism . Quedenfeldt died after a restless wandering life in 1948 in Bischofswiesen near Berchtesgaden, where he had been registered since 1946.

His photographs are coveted collector's items today.

Exhibitions

From June 18 to August 10, 2001, the University and State Library in Düsseldorf showed in the exhibition “Architecture on the Lower Rhine. Photographs by Erwin Quedenfeldt ”a selection of their complete collection of Lower Rhine photos by Quedenfeldt, which the ULB Düsseldorf has completely digitized. Some of these can be seen in the exhibition “bilderstrom. The Rhine and Photography 2016–1853 ”on display.

The exhibition “The Second Face. Metamorphoses of the Photographic Portrait ”, which took place in the Deutsches Museum in 2002, showed photographs by Louis Ducos du Hauron , László Moholy-Nagy , Man Ray , El Lissitzky , Raoul Hausmann , Hannah Höch and others as well as pictures by Quedenfeldt.

Publications (selection)

  • From old Düsseldorf: forty picturesque views based on original rubber prints. Schmitz & Olbertz, Düsseldorf 1907 ( digitized )
  • Single images from the Lower Rhine. Self-published, Düsseldorf 1909 ( digitized version )
  • The practice of the rubber printing process. Simple and combination rubber printing with self-preparation. M. Eder publishing house, Leipzig 1909
  • Light drawings. Self-published, Düsseldorf 1919 ( digitized version )

Quedenfeldt's photographs have been used in numerous publications:

  • Fritz August Breuhaus : Country houses and interiors. Verlag der Hofbuchhandlung Ernst Ohle, Düsseldorf 1911 (the illustrations are photographic reproductions made by Erwin Quedenfeldt of the country houses and interiors based on Breuhaus' original designs)
  • Richard Klapheck : The art of architecture on the Lower Rhine. 2 volumes. Bagel, Düsseldorf 1915–1916 (with photographs by Erwin Quedenfeldt Digitalisat Volume 1 , Digitalisat Volume 2 ).
  • Henkel & Co .: Description and illustrations of the factories and welfare institutions , Festschrift, Düsseldorf 1913 ( digitized version )
  • Fritz Henkel : Forty years of purposeful work by Henkel & Cie, Düsseldorf, chemical products factory in Düsseldorf 1916 ( digitized version )
  • Werner Jansen : Homeland. The beautiful Lower Rhine. Franz Ludwig Habbel , Regensburg 1920 (with numerous photographs on panels by Erwin Quedenfeldt)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sachsse (2003)
  2. ↑ Heidtmann (1978)
  3. ↑ exact dates of birth and death according to LCCN: n85071496
  4. ^ Sandra Labs: Johanna Ey and the avant-garde of the Düsseldorf art scene . Diplomica Verlag, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8428-8121-1 , p. 29 ( online )
  5. ↑ Rosenstrasse 28: E (= owner) Quedenfeldt, Erwin, wife; Quedenfeldt, Erwin, photochemist, Rhine. Teaching and research institute for photography , in address book for the city of Düsseldorf, 1910, p. 282
  6. ↑ Erwin Quedenfeldt . Short biography with further references in the portal fotografenwiki.org , accessed on June 3, 2014

literature

  • Erwin Quedenfeldt: 1869–1948 . Essen 1985 (exhibition catalog for: Photographic Collection in the Museum Folkwang Essen, June 20 - August 4, 1985).
  • Erwin Quedenfeldt: Individual Images from the Lower Rhine, 1904–1911 . Boss, Kleve 1989, ISBN 3-89413-180-2 (on the occasion of the exhibition Erwin Quedenfeldt, Photographs from the Lower Rhine , from June 18 to August 5, 1989).
  • Irmgard Siebert: The artist photographer Erwin Quedenfeldt - documentary of the Lower Rhine and pioneer of autonomous photography . In: Irmgard Siebert (Ed.): "We found the perfect spot ..." Forays into the world of books at the ULB Düsseldorf . (Journal for Libraries and Bibliography. Special Volume 121), Frankfurt am Main 2017, pp. 11–44.
  • Irmgard Siebert (Ed.): Am Niederrhein. Photographs by Erwin Quedenfeldt before the First World War . Cologne 2018, ISBN 978-3-7743-0694-3 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Quedenfeldt, Erwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Quedenfeld, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1948
Place of death Bischofswiesen