Hans Breuer (photographer)

Hans Breuer (born December 25, 1869 in Sønderborg , Denmark , † September 15, 1961 in Hamburg ) was a German photographer. He is considered one of the pioneers in press photography.

Life

Hans Breuer was the son of an innkeeper. After an apprenticeship with the Danish photographer Ludwig Stöckler in Sønderborg from 1893–1896, he set up his own business in Hamburg in 1897. Instead of concentrating on setting up a photo studio, as was customary at the time, he began to work for the rapidly growing market of illustrated newspapers . His photographs of the burning oil mill in Harburg and an excursion by Prince Bismarck to Friedrichsruh in 1897 established his profession as a photo reporter.

His main focus was cityscapes and celebrity photographs , for example of Bismarck and Wilhelm II. Breuer enjoyed the emperor's trust and photographed his bed on the imperial yacht Meteor, whereupon Wilhelm II is said to have said to him: “Breuer, if you photograph my bedroom again , then pull the duvet tight beforehand. ”For a while Breuer called himself an on-board and company photographer. Commissions from the Hamburg-America Line Hapag often took him abroad. For the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 he bought a 13 × 18 handheld camera and used it to take 600 photos, an unusually large number for the time. He mostly took photos with plate cameras measuring 18 × 24 or 24 × 30 cm.

After the Second World War , Hans Breuer documented the destruction and reconstruction in the Federal Republic. In 1959 he received the Great State Medal of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. A large part of Breuer's photographs is in the Museum of Art and Industry Hamburg .

Individual evidence

↑ Gert hail pasture: people register (author and biographies) (= Dortmunder contributions to newspaper research. 35/19). de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-092365-0 . Hagelweide speaks of "Germany's first press photographer".
^ Fritz Kempe (editor): Photography between daguerreotype and art photography. Museum for Art and Commerce Hamburg, 1987, p. 131.
↑ Bernd Weise: Press Photography III. The business with the current photo: Photographers, picture agencies, interest groups, work technology. The development in Germany up to the First World War. In: Photo history. Issue 37, 1990.

personal data
SURNAME	Breuer, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH	December 25, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH	Sønderborg , Denmark
DATE OF DEATH	September 15, 1961
Place of death	Hamburg

[1] Gert hail pasture: people register (author and biographies) (= Dortmunder contributions to newspaper research. 35/19). de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-092365-0 . Hagelweide speaks of "Germany's first press photographer".

[2] Fritz Kempe (editor): Photography between daguerreotype and art photography. Museum for Art and Commerce Hamburg, 1987, p. 131.

[3] Bernd Weise: Press Photography III. The business with the current photo: Photographers, picture agencies, interest groups, work technology. The development in Germany up to the First World War. In: Photo history. Issue 37, 1990.