Hans Robertson

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Hans Robertson (born May 8, 1883 in Hamburg , † September 11, 1950 in Vangede, Denmark ) was a German photographer and photojournalist from the Weimar Republic .

Live and act

Hans Robertson was born on May 8, 1883 as the son of a businessman in Hamburg. After finishing school and training as an engineer, he turned to photography; he had never worked as an engineer.

Initially, Hans Robertson was assistant to nature photographer Albert Steiner in St. Moritz , Switzerland. From 1911 he worked in the A. Mocsigay studio in Hamburg , which published numerous series with photo postcards. From 1915 to 1919 Robertson and Albert Steiner ran the photo business in St. Moritz, which Steiner had built up there from 1910.

After his military service in World War I , Robertson is said to have settled in Berlin-Wilmersdorf , Duisburgerstrasse No. 2 as a freelance photographer. Around 1927 Robertson took over Lili Baruch's studio at Kurfürstendamm 201, which specialized in theater and dance photography, and headed it from 1928 to 1933, here with the address Kurfürstendamm No. 200.

As a dance and industrial photographer, as well as a photo journalist, Robertson became one of the most renowned portraitists in the city, especially of writers, artists and politicians such as Käthe Kollwitz , Heinrich Mann and Gustav Stresemann . He became particularly known for his recordings of modern dancers such as Harald Kreutzberg , Vera Skoronel and Mary Wigman , as well as the boxer Max Schmeling .

For political reasons, Hans Robertson handed over his studio together with the negative inventory in June 1933 to his former colleague Siegfried Enkelmann (1905–1978), who continued the studio under his name until 1961.

In 1933 Hans Robertson married the Danish dancer Inger Kyser-Linden, née Levin (* 1903). As a Jew, Hans Robertson was expelled from the Berlin State Association of Photo Reporters when the National Socialists came to power . In 1934 Robertson and his wife emigrated to Denmark via Switzerland. There Robertson settled in Copenhagen and opened a photography school, worked as a freelance portrait and theater photographer and published articles in photo magazines.

In 1943 Robertson and his wife fled to Stockholm before the beginning of the persecution of the Jews. In May 1945 they returned to the suburb of Vangede in Copenhagen and reopened his photography school. Hans Robertson stayed in Denmark until his death on September 11, 1950.

The National Museum of Photograph in Copenhagen holds the largest collection of negatives from Hans Robertson's estate. In The Black Diamond is a selection of his most important photographs from the years "before Hitler" were presented at the exhibition in 2010, including newly discovered Berlin photographs.

Exhibitions

  • 1931: Exhibition together with Charlotte Rudolph , Essen and Mannheim
  • 2005: De la comtesse De Castiglione à Cindy Sherman - Galerie de France, Paris
  • 2008: Hans Robertson - Berlinische Galerie, State Museum for Modern Art, Photography and Architecture, Berlin

literature

  • Photographische Rundschau und Mitteilungen, magazine for friends of photography, published by chemist Paul Hanneke, Berlin, Prof. Dr. Luther, Dresden, and F. Matthies-Masuren, Halle a. S., 49th year, Photographische Verlagsgesellschaft, Halle a. S. 1912, issue 1
  • Photographische Rundschau und Mitteilungen, magazine for friends of photography, published by chemist Paul Hanneke, Berlin, Prof. Dr. Luther, Dresden, and F. Matthies-Masuren, Halle a. S., 50th year, Photographische Verlagsgesellschaft, Halle a. S. 1913, issue 22
  • Our time in 77 portraits of women, Niels Kampmann Verlag, Heidelberg undated (approx. 1930)
  • The beautiful dancer who makes herself ugly, photo report with three photos by Robertson-Unionbild, in: Neue IZ, issue 2 from January 12, 1933
  • Frank-Manuel Peter : "The dancing light picture". Hugo Erfurth as a documentarist of early expressive dance. In: Bodo von Dewitz , Karin Schuller-Procopovici (ed.): Hugo Erfurth, 1874–1948. Photographer between tradition and modernity. Wienand, Cologne 1992, ISBN 3-87909-312-1 , pp. 45–52, here p. 51.
  • Honnef, Klaus & Weyers, Frank (eds.). And they ... had to leave Germany. Photographers and their pictures 1928-1997. 171 photographers, 603 illustrations. (Foreword by Frank Günter Zehnder).
  • Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller , Daniel Brandenburg , Monika Woitas. Prima la danza !: Festschrift for Sibylle Dahms, 2004, ISBN 382602771X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Hans Robertson, short vita on photo Switzerland
  2. Baruch, Lili. Entrance building of the S-Bahn station Heerstrasse in Berlin. Original photograph. However, Ku-Damm is not given as the address, but: Charlottenburg 4, Bismarckstr. 103, Berlin C 1. Telefon-Amt Steinplatz 7857. Accordingly, until the end of 1927 the studio was jointly owned by Lili Altschul-Baruch and Hans Robertson. Robertson took over the studio from Lili Baruch in the second half of 1928.
  3. ^ BZ, An exhibition shows never seen photos by the Berlin artist Hans Robertson, November 11, 2008