Arnold Genthe
Arnold Genthe (born January 8, 1869 in Berlin , † August 9, 1942 in New York City ) was a German-American photographer . As a portrait, dance and travel photographer, Genthe was one of the more prominent representatives of pictorialism in the USA during his lifetime . After his death, he was mainly known for his photographs of the destroyed city of San Francisco after the earthquake of 1906 and for his unique photographic impressions of the original Chinatown before the quake, which are of historical photographic value.
Live and act
Arnold Genthe was the son of Hermann Genthe (1838–1886) and Louise Zober. The father was a Latin, Greek, German and gymnastics teacher at the Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster . His grandfather was the writer Friedrich Wilhelm Genthe (1805–1866).
Genthe followed his father in training. In 1894 he received his doctorate in philology from the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena , where he was acquainted with Adolph Menzel , a cousin of his mother. In 1895 Genthe accepted an invitation to go to San Francisco as a teacher for two years . To capture the impressions of the lively city, he bought a camera and taught himself photography. Genthe took a great interest in the local Chinese population and began to pursue photographic studies in the Chinese Quarter: he photographed children, old people, traders or the drug addicts in the opium dens ; sometimes he hid his camera to get natural, candid shots or so as not to scare off his photo opportunities. Sometimes he removed signs of Western culture from the pictures by cropping or deleting them.
In the late 1890s he successfully participated in several exhibitions on the west coast. In 1897 he opened his own photo studio and began to work independently. Genthe's reputation as an excellent portrait photographer quickly grew , and his clients soon included contemporary great actors such as Sarah Bernhardt and Nance O'Neil , as well as literary figures and members of the bohemian community such as Jack London , Frank Norris and Mary Hunter Austin .
Genthe's photo studio and all of his property were destroyed in the earthquake in April 1906, only the negatives from Chinatown, which were stored in a bank vault, were spared. Shortly after the quake, Genthe got a new camera and documented the consequences of the disaster. These recordings as well as the more than 200 photographs from the original Chinatown are extremely valuable historically.
In 1908 Genthe moved to New York, where he again found recognition as a portrait photographer. In Genthe's New York studio, impressive portraits of Greta Garbo were created even before she was internationally known, and which are believed to have played a decisive role in promoting the actress' career.
Furthermore, Genthe distinguished himself as a specialist in dance photography and took numerous pictures of famous dancers such as Isadora Duncan , Anna Pawlowa and Ruth St. Denis . He published these photographs in 1916 in The Book of Dance . The photographer also used the autochrome process , an early color photography process.
Arnold Genthe died of a heart attack in New York in 1942 at the age of 73 . He bequeathed his extensive photographic estate to the Library of Congress .
bibliography
Publications by Arnold Genthe
- 1892: German slang. A collection of familiar expressions and phrases . Trübner, Strasbourg 1892
- 1908: Pictures of Old Chinatown ; Text by Will Irwin; Moffat, Yard and Co., New York 1908; Reprinted by Kessinger Pub Co., 2008, ISBN 978-0-548-81344-7
- 1916: The Book of the Dance . 1916, International Publishers, Boston 1920
- 1926: Impressions of Old New Orleans ; Foreword by Grace King; George H. Doran Co., New York 1926
- 1929: Isadora Duncan: Twenty four studies . M. Kennerley 1929; reprinted by Books for Libraries 1980 ISBN 0-8369-9306-3
- 1936: As I remember . Reynal & Hitchcock, New York 1936
- 1937: Highlights and shadows . Greenberg, New York 1937
Monographs
- Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown . Selection and text by John Kuo Wei Tchen, Dover Publications, New York 1984, ISBN 0-486-24592-6
literature
- 20th century photography . Taschen, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-8228-8818-4 , pp. 197 f .
Web links
- Arnold Genthe Collection - Image archive in the Library of Congress (English)
- California Historical Society Collection ( Memento of February 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- SF MOMA Collection - Works by Arnold Genthe (English)
- Arnold Genthe on kunstaspekte.de
- Search for Arnold Genthe in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Genthe, Arnold |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 8, 1869 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 9, 1942 |
| Place of death | New York City |