Hans Saebens

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Hans Saebens (born March 25, 1895 in Bremen ; † October 16, 1969 there ) was a German painter , graphic artist and photographer who specialized primarily in landscapes in northern Germany . He lived in the artists' village Worpswede near Bremen.

biography

Saebens studied at the Bremen Art School with Willy Menz . After three years of attending the Academy for Graphics and Book Industry in Leipzig from 1914 to 1916 and serving as a soldier, he went to Worpswede as a painter in 1919 .

From 1930 Saebens turned to the camera as an autodidact, and in 1932 he began taking photos with the Leica . His wife, Eugenie von Garvens (* March 18, 1881, † November 24, 1964), whom he met in 1919 and married in the 1920s, was a writer and needed "illustrations for her cultural and traveling work". So Saebens grabbed the camera and at the beginning felt around the developer unsuspectingly, as he said himself about it. Only the meeting with Paul Wolff around 1932 and the "14-day apprenticeship" at Wolff in Bremen and Frankfurt am Main brought success and was probably of great importance for Saebens.

When Uwe Bölts in the Hans Saebens. Pictures of light for the exhibition of the art collection Böttcherstraße in Bremen writes that Saebens helped to make the Leica known and that the Leica made him known, this reflects Saeben's connection to the Leitz company . And yet Saebens was a rather atypical Leica photographer.

Saebens' way of working as a photographer

Since Oskar Barnack's invention of the Leica, the 35mm camera which, thanks to its reduced size, put the photographer right in the middle of the action and enabled him to work directly under his subjects, modern photo reportage was born. The photographer was flexible now, the camera allowed him to shoot from the event out his pictures and to become flashy, the Decisive Moment , the decisive moment exploit. Henri Cartier-Bresson , whom Saebens met in Hamburg in 1953, proposed the theory of the decisive moment in 1952 . “For me, the essence of photography is the ability to grasp the meaning and weight of an event in a fraction of a second and at the same time capture it in a form that validly expresses the essence of this event,” writes Cartier-Bresson. And in doing so, in contrast to Saebens, he uses the possibilities that the Leica offers the photographer.

Of course, Saebens used the Leica as a reportage camera, although he also advertises its use with a tripod in the trade press. In his work, it can often be seen that, in addition to the recordings at the “decisive moment”, Saebens also worked as a director, may have created his scene, as requested by the client, for example. “Taking pictures [for traffic advertising] requires extensive photographic skills. In addition to the so-called “snapshot” - this very questionable catchphrase - portraits are made in a different environment and different lighting conditions than in the home studio ”. However, he has understood how to make the scene appear so natural and depict it that a viewer cannot perceive it.

Although Robert d´Hooghe states about Saebens: "If he has people in the picture, he does not use 'direction' but tries to capture them in their natural posture and occupation, for which he likes to sacrifice a few more shots", may not always be true.

“I do not practice photography as an end in itself. So not as an abstract graphic chiaroscuro element. As appealing as finding new forms and effects can be, I rather want to pursue a purpose with the camera, i.e. give content. Show matter, cities, ports, landscapes, people. For this I wait for the photographic suitability. For months if necessary. "

- Hans Saebens: : look through the viewfinder . In: »Leica Photography« 1950, issue 5, pp. 196–200 and issue 6, pp. 260–265, here 260.

But this is only possible if the director threatens to influence the naturalness of the recording.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, says Saebens, on the other hand, is “a man who refuses to influence the incident for his photographic purposes or even to let it roll through cool direction according to photographic criteria” Nonetheless - or precisely because of his way of working - Saebens is with his An important chronicler for the 20th century.

  • Self-portrait of Hans Saebens, February 1941

  • Photograph by Saebens: Plastic Taube by sculptor Lehmann, Worpswede, October 1965

  • Photography by Saebens: sculptures by Bernhard Hoetger from the exhibition “Worpswede 1920–1930” at Fritz Netzel, Worpswede, April 1963

  • Photography by Saebens: Wilkens & Sons, Hemelingen. Manufacture of silver corpus pieces, September 1938

  • Photography by Saebens: Wilkens & Sons, Hemelingen. Manufacture of silver corpus pieces, September 1938

Image publications

  • With Johannes Schenk : light in the moor. Memory . Ed .: Horst Wöbbeking. Verlag Atelier im Bauernhaus, Fischerhude 1990, ISBN 3-88132-165-9 .
  • with Otto Gothe: Backtorf. Pictures and stories from the old Teufelsmoor . With an essay by Fritz Kempe. Worpsweder Verlag, Lilienthal 1982, ISBN 3-922516-29-7 .
  • Worpswede. History and stories . Schünemann, Bremen 1968, OCLC 54496955 .
  • Gisela Arnd: East Frisia. Land in transition . Edited by Hermann Bakker. Burkhard-Verlag Heyer, Essen 1968.
  • Gisela Arnd: Worpsweder picture book . Burkhard-Verlag Heyer, Essen 1966.
  • Hanns Meyer: Nice Bremen . Schünemann, Bremen 1956; 1960; 1963; 1966.
  • Siegfried Fliedner, Werner Kloos : Bremen churches . Recordings also by H. Stickelmann. Ed .: Christel Matthias Schröder . Heye, Bremen 1961
  • August Dierks , Eugenie von Garvens; Bremerhaven, active city in the North Sea wind. Becoming, fate and essence of a port city . Ed .: Chamber of Commerce and Industry Bremerhaven with the participation of the City Council of Bremerhaven. Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bremerhaven 1959.
  • Hanns Meyer: Ships and ports in Bremen . Schünemann, Bremen 1955.
  • Manfred Hausmann : Bremen. Face of a Hanseatic city . Schünemann, Bremen 1955.
  • Eugenie von Garvens: Wetzlar. Image of a city. Leica photos by Hans Saebens . Umschau-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1949/1953. (Reprint: Classic Cameras Verlag , Wetzlar 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-038023-5 )
  • Eugenie von Garvens: Blessing in the moor. A German book of fate. With pictures by Hans Saebens . Klinkhardt & Biermann, Berlin 1934.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Uwe Bölts: Hans Saebens, pictures of light . Catalog for the exhibition of the Böttcherstraße art collection in Bremen, p. 7
  2. ↑ a b c Saebens 1962 in a letter to his friend Fritz Kempe, in: Fritz Kempe: Encounters. Hans Saebens - Cavalier with the Camera , p. 47.
  3. ↑ a b Robert d´Hooghe: Master of the Leica, Hans Saebens , p. 210.
  4. ^ From a biographical note by Saebens from February 17, 1969, quoted by Uwe Bölts: Hans Saebens. Images of light , p. 13f.
  5. ^ Master of the Leica, Henri Cartier-Bresson . In: »Leica Photography« 1953, issue 1, pp. 4–10, here 4.
  6. ↑ Hans Saebens: look through the viewfinder . In: »Leica Photography« 1950, issue 5, pp. 196–200, and issue 6, pp. 260–265, here 200.
  7. ↑ Hans Saebens: Image work for traffic advertising . In: »Leica Photography« 1950, issue 2, pp. 65–72, here 70.
  8. ↑ Hans Saebens: Sammetpfote - eagle eye. Henri Cartier-Bresson . In: »Leica Photography« 1953, issue 1, pp. 11–12, here 11.

literature

  • Aiko Schmidt: Small negative - large picture. Leica photographers Dr. Paul Wolff, Alfred Tritschler and Hans Saebens . In: Bernd Küster (Ed.): I just see differently. Photography in northwest Germany in the 20th century . Donat, Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-938275-22-1 , pp. 100-119.
  • Uwe Bölts: Hans Saebens. Images of light . Catalog for the exhibition of the Böttcherstraße art collection in Bremen. Worpswede 1995.
  • Hans Saebens. Photographs 1930–1969. Exhibition in the Landesbildstelle Bremen . Ed .: Landesbildstelle Bremen. Text and image selection Helmut Brandt. Worpsweder Verlag, Lilienthal 1989, ISBN 3-89299-148-0 .
  • Fritz Kempe: Encounters. Hans Saebens - Cavalier with the camera . In: »Fotomagazin« 6/1978, pp. 46–49.
  • Robert d´Hooghe: Master of the Leica, Hans Saebens . GDL, »Leica Photography« 1953, issue 6.

Web links

Commons : Hans Saebens  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Saebens, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, graphic artist and landscape photographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH 16th October 1969
Place of death Bremen