Alfred Ehrhardt

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Alfred Franz Adolf Ehrhardt (born March 5, 1901 in Triptis , † May 29, 1984 in Hamburg ) was a German photographer and documentary filmmaker .

Life

After attending the Realgymnasium in Gera , Ehrhardt studied music specializing in the organ at the Weißenfels seminar . Ehrhardt had a fondness for works by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the twenties he performed as an organist in northern Germany.

From 1924 to 1930 he worked as a teacher for art education , music , gymnastics and athletics at the Gandersheim educational home of the reform pedagogue Max Bondy . The school moved to Dahlenburg in 1929 . His lessons focused on artistic dance with the role models Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman . In 1926/27 he also made the paintings in the crypt of the Lamspringe monastery church , which were painted over during the National Socialist era and can be viewed again after three years of restoration (2007-2010).

In 1928/29 he studied at the Dessau Bauhaus on leave from school service . There he not only studies in the Bauhaus preliminary course of the German artist Josef Albers , but also in the painting classes of Paul Klee and Lyonel Feiniger and as an intern in the stage workshop of Oskar Schlemmer . He developed a friendship with Wassily Kandinsky . In October 1930, Max Sauerlandt appointed Ehrhardt to the State Art School Hamburg , which was to be reformed in line with the Bauhaus, as a lecturer for material studies. In 1931 the Kunstverein Hamburg showed an exhibition of his paintings, drawings and prints, the only one during Ehrhardt's lifetime. His first marriage was Mia Burchard from the Warburg banking family . In 1932 his book Gestaltungslehre was published. The practice of contemporary art and handicraft lessons , and his first son Klaus was born.

Ehrhardt was dismissed in 1933 because the National Socialists classified his proximity to the Bauhaus as cultural Bolshevik . His marriage failed and in 1933 he found a job as organist and choir director in Cuxhaven , which he held until 1936.

The first photo excursions followed in the mudflats between Scharhörn and Neuwerk , and in 1934 also on the Curonian Spit . In the winter semester of 1934/1935 he received an appointment at the Askov adult education center in South Jutland / Denmark and took a leave of absence for this period.

Ehrhardt used a camera to compose abstract pictures that were frowned upon in painting in the Third Reich: the pictures taken between 1933 and 1936 show sand structures formed by the wind and the sea. From these two photographic series, the Kunstgewerbe-Verein Hamburg showed over 100 exhibits in several exhibitions in 1936 and 1937; the exhibitions were shown in several German cities, later also in London , Paris , Stockholm and Copenhagen . The Hamburg state bought some of the works and the first of 13 illustrated books by the end of the war was published. The series is considered Ehrhardt's most successful and establishes his reputation as an avant-garde photographer.

"Ehrhardt had already taught as a lecturer in materials science," writes the Ehrhardt Foundation, "that inorganic matter is not dead, but a living element."

In 1937 he began making documentaries, initially on the Wadden Sea , Iceland , Flanders , Bohemia and Moravia on behalf of government agencies. Ehrhardt married Lieselotte Dannmeyer (daughter of the meteorologist Ferdinand Dannmeyer ) in 1938 , their son Jens Ehrhardt , later an asset manager and fund manager, was born in 1942. His Hamburg house was destroyed in a bomb attack. He received an offer from Georg Hartmann, the owner of the Bauerschen Giesserei in Frankfurt am Main, to use his country house in Burgjoss in Spessart, where the family lived until the Hamburg house was restored in 1947. Ehrhardt photographed his art collection. He also made photographs of Frankfurt's old town before it was destroyed by Allied bombing attacks, which were published in 1950 in the illustrated book Alt-Frankfurt .

Ehrhardt suddenly received an order from the field of industrial photography in Hamburg, an area not previously part of his repertoire. He was supposed to make pictures for the Chamber of Commerce's publication with the title "Hamburg als Industrieplatz". The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce wanted to avoid the impression that the Hanseatic city was primarily a port and trading center. From February to March 1952 Ehrhardt photographed companies such as Shell, Montblanc, Sanella, Steinway & Sons, Carl Kühne, the Allgemeine Telefonfabrik, the Bergedorfer and the Ottenser Eisenwerk in Hamburg.

In 1948 he founded the Alfred Ehrhardt Film production company ; his first documentary about the Bordesholmer Altar was successful at the Venice Biennale . By 1973 he made another sixty documentaries, which were awarded numerous prizes.

Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation in Auguststrasse (Berlin)

Awards

He received federal film awards four times for his cultural films:

  • 1950: Ernst Barlach Part 1
  • 1952: The game of spirals
  • 1953: Portugal - unknown country by the sea
  • 1954: Destiny and Legacy

Foundation, endowment

His son Jens Ehrhardt founded the Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation in 2002 , which is dedicated to researching his estate and communicating his work through exhibitions and publications. Until 2009 the foundation was domiciled in the Cologne Forum for Photography. In January 2010 the foundation moved to Berlin. There changing exhibitions are shown, which show contemporary positions that deal with the concept of "nature" and the "constructions of the natural" based on Ehrhardt's work themes, as well as historical photography and film art.

Exhibitions

  • Alfred Ehrhardt - Photographs , June 19 - August 26, 2001, Kunsthalle Bremen, September 14 - November 4, 2001, Kunstmuseum Bonn.
  • Alfred Ehrhardt. Drawings and paintings , September 29 - December 2, 2007, Meisterhaus Schlemmer, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.
  • Gifted hands - works by Tilman Riemenschneider in recordings by Alfred Ehrhardt , April 21 - July 29, 2012, Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg.
  • Arvid Gutschow and Alfred Ehrhardt - related , 12 January - 17 March 2013, Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation Berlin ( homepage of the exhibition )
  • Alfred Ehrhardt - Portugal 1951-1961 , January 17 - March 10, 2013, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
  • Alfred Ehrhardt. The New Seeing: Nature and Abstraction , June 15, 2014 - January 11, 2015, Museum Art of the West Coast Föhr.
  • Alfred Ehrhardt - Das Watt , February 8 - May 17, 2015, State Museum for Art and Cultural History Oldenburg
  • Hamburg Industrial Photography 1952 , May 21 - July 17, 2015, Hamburg Chamber of Commerce
  • Alfred Ehrhardt: Watt photographs from the 1930s, August 6, 2016 - January 8, 2017, Wadden Sea Visitor Center Cuxhaven
  • Alfred Ehrhardt: 100 years of Bauhaus I: Alfred Ehrhardt - painting, drawing, graphics, January 12th - April 18th, 2019, Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation Berlin

literature

  • Alfred Ehrhardt. Photographs. Edited by Christine Hopfengart and Christiane Stahl. Exhibition cat. Kunsthalle Bremen and Kunstmuseum Bonn, Ostfildern 2001, ISBN 978-3-7757-1093-0 .
  • Alfred Ehrhardt. Iceland. Edited by Christiane Stahl and Inga Lára Baldvinsdóttir. Exhibition cat. Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation and National Museum Iceland, Ostfildern 2005, ISBN 978-3-7757-1645-1 .
  • Christiane Stahl. Alfred Ehrhardt. Natural philosopher with the camera. Photographs from 1933 to 1947. Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-496-01364-8 .
  • Nature before us (DVD). Script, direction: Niels Bolbrinker in collaboration with Christiane Stahl. Cologne 2008.
  • Roel Vande Winkel: Flanders' Germanic face. German cultural films from occupied Belgium. In: Filmblatt Volume 13, No. 36 Fall 2008, ISSN  1433-2051 , pp. 5–21.
  • Imke Lüders. The wall and ceiling paintings by Alfred Ehrhardt in Lamspringe. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-422-02344-4 .
  • Kerstin Stutterheim: Beyond "absolute film" and classic cultural film. The filmmaker Alfred Ehrhardt in search of the artistic symbiosis. In: Filmblatt Volume 18, No. 52 Fall 2013, ISSN  1433-2051 , pp. 33–42.
  • Alfred Ehrhardt. The Wadden. Facsimile edition, Edition Xavier Barral, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2365110266 .
  • Alfred Ehrhardt - Photographs, edited by Christiane Stahl and Stefanie Odenthal for the Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-061051-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Franziska Bossy: Eat me, machine! In: https://www.spiegel.de/ . Der Spiegel, May 22, 2015, accessed on December 21, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Hamburg industrial photography 1952 ( Memento from May 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Ehrhardt, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ehrhardt, Alfred Franz Adolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer and documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Triptis
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1984
Place of death Hamburg