August Kotzsch
August Kotzsch (born September 20, 1836 in Loschwitz near Dresden ; † October 23, 1910 there ) was a German photographer .
Life
Carl Friedrich August Kotzsch was born in 1836 as the second child of the winemaker couple Johann Gottfried and Johanna Christiane Kotzsch. The family owned a vineyard called Winterleithe , later called Kotzschens Berg . From 1842 to 1850, Kotzsch attended the village school in Loschwitz and then joined his parents' business without learning a trade.
In addition to growing wine, the family earned income by renting rooms to summer guests, for example to Ludwig Richter , who rented the Kotzsch House during his first summer stay in Loschwitz in 1852 and who stayed in the neighborhood every year until his death.
During this time, Kotzsch began to draw from Richter's drawings and woodcuts as well as from nature, of which 27 drawings and the sketchbooks have survived. However, the wish to study at the art academy remained unfulfilled for financial reasons. In order to keep the son as a co-breadwinner for the family, the father bought him free from military service in 1856 .
Around 1860 Kotzsch had the opportunity to help his neighbor August Niemann, painter and photographer, occasionally with the production of photographic recordings and to learn the photographic techniques. After Niemann's death around 1861, Kotzsch bought the equipment and since then has been a commercial photographer in Loschwitz in addition to his work as a winegrower. In addition to the extensive documentation of his parents' vineyard, it was primarily nature studies that the young photographer dealt with.
In 1865, Kotzsch married Sophie Fischer, who died the following year while giving birth to her first child. In 1868 he married Ida Auguste Leinert in Muskau , with whom he had five children. After the death of his father in 1869, he was responsible for looking after his own family as well as his mother and sister. Since Kotzsch was the only photographer in Loschwitz and the surrounding area, his studio received a good financial basis. In addition, he was responsible for taking pictures of special occasions in the town, partly as a commission, partly on his own initiative, and since 1877 he has met the demand for picture postcards .
Hardly anything of Kotzsch's photographic equipment has survived. It is likely that Kotzsch used a so-called sliding box camera , the Aplanat by Carl August von Steinheil and the orthoscope by Petzval come into consideration as lenses . From the mid-1870s he also made stereo recordings . Kotzsch preferred the wet collodion process , in which the plates were cast before exposure, wet exposed and immediately developed. When taking pictures outside, a self-made two-wheeled handcart that was taken along served as a darkroom . To copy the recordings, he used albumin paper which, after drying, was mounted on cardboard and provided by Kotzsch with an oval embossing stamp.
After 1895, Kotzsch only occasionally took pictures of his house and family. The house had become dilapidated over time, he had it torn down in 1905 and a new one built (the current Kotzsch House). August Kotzsch died in 1910 at the age of 74 and was buried in the Loschwitz cemetery .
plant
August Kotzsch, who called himself “Photographer in Loschwitz near Dresden”, became internationally known for his views of the landscape around Loschwitz. In addition to everyday scenes, local events, the work of craftsmen and farmers and nature motifs, Kotzsch motifs included portraits of prominent visitors.
In a list of works he created there are 550 motifs that he himself classified as artistically valuable. These were primarily study sheets in which he implemented his free creative will and his own artistic conception.
Since the mid-1880s, his work enjoyed international renown as a result of important exhibitions. On the occasion of the world exhibition in Vienna in 1873 he received a medal of merit. In 1875 he took part in the industrial exhibition in Dresden , where he received a first prize and an honorary diploma in 1879.
August Kotzsch inventory of the Deutsche Fotothek
The August Kotzsch collection of the Deutsche Fotothek contains motifs from the Loschwitz area from the years 1861 to 1894.
In addition to the core inventory of 29 glass plates in the format 18 × 24 cm (SLUB / DF 95596–95624), which, according to the access book, came to the photo library in July 1953, the collection contains four more glass negatives (SLUB / DF 121432–121435) dated March 1953 are listed in the access book, as well as a record (SLUB / DF 95087), which was included in the inventory as early as 1935 as a gift from Kotzsch's son Otto.
A bundle of 50 glass plates in the format 9 × 12 cm (SLUB / DF 82702-82752) is also noted with the date of receipt July 1953. 30 of these negatives are photographs by Otto Kotzsch, the remaining 20 are reproductions after August Kotzsch, which were probably made by Otto Kotzsch.
Furthermore, the photo library has 18 reproductions by Walter Möbius , which were made in 1934 (SLUB / DF 20939) and 1937 (SLUB / DF 54989-55005) from original positives of unspecified origin. Another 20 recent reproductions based on originals from the Kupferstichkabinett Dresden , the City Archives and the Saxon Main State Archives Dresden as well as from private collections round off the Kotzsch holdings of the Deutsche Fotothek.
A total of around 700 motifs from the work of August Kotzsch have been preserved: Many are in family ownership, especially with Kotzsch's great-grandson Volkmar Herre , as well as in various private collections in the Dresden area. In the Dresden City Museum 48 original plates and 102 original prints are kept. Eleven original prints are in the Kupferstichkabinett Dresden, five in the graphic collection of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart , four original plates and 23 reproductions, which were made after 1920 by Kotzsch's son Hermann based on his father's originals, in the main state archive in Dresden.
literature
- Ernst Hirsch , Matthias Griebel , Volkmar Herre: August Kotzsch 1836–1910. Photographer in Loschwitz near Dresden. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1986.
- Ulrike Gauss (Ed.): August Kotzsch 1836–1910. Pioneer of German photography. Catalog Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden. Cantz, Stuttgart 1992.
- Hans-Ulrich Lehmann: August Kotzsch - chronicler of Loschwitz . In: Dresdner Geschichtsverein (ed.): The Loschwitz-Pillnitzer cultural landscape. Dresdner Hefte 34, 11th year, Heft 34, 2, 1993, pp. 28–35.
Web links
- Literature by and about August Kotzsch in the catalog of the German National Library
- Literature by and about August Kotzsch in the Saxon Bibliography
- August Kotzsch in the Deutsche Fotothek
- Article in Stadtwiki Dresden
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kotzsch, August |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 20, 1836 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Loschwitz |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 23, 1910 |
| Place of death | Loschwitz |