Ernst Juhl

Ernst Juhl, recorded by Rudolf Dührkoop in 1905

Ernst Wilhelm Juhl (born December 10, 1850 in Hamburg ; † August 18, 1915 there ) was a German businessman , art collector and organizer of exhibitions on art photography . He is considered one of the most important pioneers of pictorialism in Europe.

Life and work as a businessman

Ernst Juhl was one of five children of Willards Nilsen Juhl and his wife Auguste, née Buckup, who had been married since 1841. His father was a trained businessman and had acquired Hamburg citizenship in 1840 . Ernst Juhl first attended high school and then studied engineering from 1873 to 1874 at the Technical University of Hanover .

After completing his studies, in 1878 he took a position as authorized signatory at Kleinau & Co., a factory for patented security locks , which was liquidated in 1879 . In the same year he founded the company Juhl and Glüenstein and four years later the company Juhl & Cordes . Both companies went bankrupt in 1896 .

Juhl had been married to Johanna Julie Auguste, nee Jacoby, since 1879. The marriage had three children.

Ernst Juhl had Hamburg citizenship since 1881.

Act as an art collector and exhibition organizer

Ernst Juhl (left) with the family of his daughter Hertha Therfloth. Photo: Rudolf Dührkoop

Juhl collected art, was known as a connoisseur and lover of contemporary works and focused in particular on art photographs from around 1900. For this he used his private fortune. In 1891 he was one of the founding members of the Amateur Photographers Association . Four years later the Society for the Promotion of Amateur Photography emerged from this, and he took over as chairman. Juhl arranged contacts to the most important associations that dealt with photography worldwide. One of the main reasons for this was the organization of ten larger, international art photography exhibitions a year in the Hamburger Kunsthalle , which Juhl took over from 1893 to 1903 - with the exception of 1901. Hamburg thus developed into a center of an international initiative by amateurs who wanted to artistically develop the stylistic elements of professional photography that were valid at the time.

Amateur photography

Art photography around 1900, also known as amateur photography or pictorialism (after the English pictorial), is one of the most varied chapters in the history of photography. Since the equipment was very expensive at the time, wealthy amateur photographers from the rising bourgeoisie in particular could afford to experiment with modern equipment and elaborate development methods. Their aesthetics were based on the creative formats of the contemporary trends, impressionism , art nouveau and symbolism . Painting and amateur photography at that time were often mutual sources of inspiration and converged in their expressions. The painter Arthur Illies designed the signet and diplomas for the Society for the Promotion of Amateur Photography .

One of the best-known representatives of this direction was Rudolf Dührkoop , who had developed from an amateur to a distinguished professional photographer. Other well-known professional photographers joined in with the initiative's intentions and caused members of the educated middle class to rethink their thinking. This development represents a unique process in the history of photography; Photography was thus seen as art and the photographers as artists, and the Hamburg exhibition was accordingly programmatically renamed in 1898.

Hamburg School

Expressionist dance study by Minya Diez-Dührkoop 1924

Alfred Lichtwark , director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, probably became aware of the works of the amateur photographers through Juhl and supported the movement intensively in the period that followed. Together with the Hofmeister brothers , they founded the Hamburg School of Art Photography .

In addition to organizing the exhibitions, Juhl wrote many articles and published collections of art photographs and was the artistic director of the Photographische Rundschau as the artistic director of the picture editor from 1896 to 1902 . While Juhl had an international focus, German art photographers took a chauvinistic approach. After many subscribers and German amateur clubs protested against the publication of photographs by the Luxembourg-American photographer Edward Steichen , Juhl took responsibility for this and resigned from his position.

From 1908 on, Juhl worked on the Hamburg State Photographical Collection on behalf of the Hamburg Senate , after Joachim Lichtwark had asked the incumbent mayor, Johann Heinrich Burchard , to finance the project. The pictures that showed Hamburg and the surrounding area as well as the Lower Elbe up to the mouth of the Elbe were mainly created by Anton Joachim Christian Bruhn and partly by Minya Diez-Dührkoop . Under Juhl's direction, over 1000 photographs were taken by 1912. The Hamburg Senate gave away 300 numbered collections with the title “Hamburg - Land and People of the Lower Elbe”, which contained 90 images from the collection. After Burchard's death in September 1912, the project was discontinued, although the Senate had promised a further 2,000 marks for this.

Juhl probably collected around 800 photographs privately from 1893. Around 100 of the images came from Minya Diez-Dührkoop, Rudolph Dührkoop's daughter. Part of Juhl's collection was destroyed in World War II . The rest of the collection was sold after his death in 1916 and can be seen today in the Berlin Art Library and, to a large extent, in the Museum of Art and Industry in Hamburg.

Articles in the Photographische Rundschau (selection)

• Eduard Steichen . In: 16. Jg., 1902, p. 127–129 (Richard Neuhauss: To our readers , (about Juhl's retreat. In: 16. Jg., 1902, p. 163)
• IX. International exhibition of art photography in the Kunsthalle zu Hamburg . In: 16. Jg., 1902, pp. 103-117
• Frederik Hollyer . In: 16. Jg., 1902, pp. 83-86
• Theodor and Oskar Hofmeister, Hamburg . In: 16. Jg., 1902, pp. 65-70
• HW Müller, Hamburg . In: 16. Jg., 1902, pp. 12-15
• The International Exhibition of Fine Art Photography in Glasgow . In: 15. Jg., 1901, pp. 197-200
• Modern art photography at the exhibition at Louis Bock & Sohn in Hamburg . In: 15th year, 1901, p. 25ff.
• Seventh international exhibition of art photographs in the Kunsthalle zu Hamburg . In: 13th Jg., 1899, pp. 265-269 and pp. 305-316.
• Sixth International Exhibition of Art Photography in the Kunsthalle zu Hamburg . In Volume 12, p. 296ff. and p. 324ff.
• The promotion of the arts and crafts through fine art photography . In: 12th year, 1898, pp. 161ff.,.
• The anniversary exhibition in Brussels and a report from Paris and Lille . In: 12th year, 1898, pp. 195ff.
• Photographic Salon 1897 . In: 11th year, 1897, p. 238ff.
• Fifth International Exhibition of Art Photographs organized by the Society for the Promotion of Amateur Photography in the Kunsthalle zu Hamburg , In: 11th year, 1897, p. 372ff.
• The international exhibition for amateur photography Berlin 1896 (the department for artistic photography). In: 10th Jg., 1896, pp. 292-297 and pp. 323-332.
• The scientific recordings at the Hamburg exhibition . In: 10th year 1896, p. 55ff.

literature

• Gabriele Betancourt Nuñez: Juhl, Ernst . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 3 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0081-4 , p. 186-188 .
• Rüdiger Joppien , Gabriele Philipp [= Gabriele Betancourt Nuñez] (editor): Art photography around 1900. Ed. Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg 1989.
• Hamburg, the country and people of the Lower Elbe. Publishing house for art and photography, Hamburg 1981.

Web links

Commons : Ernst Juhl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Ernst Juhl  - Sources and full texts

• Pictorialism Portal , Art Library State Museums in Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ^ Communication in the Photographische Rundschau , 9th year, 7th issue, p. 1, ( online ).