Hans sheep goose

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Hans Schafgans (born August 18, 1927 in Bonn ; † July 31, 2015 ) was a German photographer and writer. He was the fourth generation to run the Schafgans photo studio, which was founded in 1854.

Sheep goose photographer dynasty

Hans Schafgans was the offspring of a Bonn photographer dynasty.

Johannes sheep goose

The painter Johannes Schafgans (1828–1905), great-grandfather of Hans Schafgans, founded a photo studio in Bonn in 1854, 15 years after the invention of photography , right next to the town hall in Rathausgasse. This studio has existed in the same location since then until today. As a pioneer in his field, which Johannes Schafgans learned in Frankfurt and Amsterdam , he focused on the future of the new technology. He portrayed important contemporaries such as the poet Luigi Pirandello , Karl Simrock , August Kekulé and members of the manorial houses and the imperial family. He also captured the fire in Bonn's Remigius Church in pictures.

Theodor sheep goose

Schafgans photo studio in Rathausgasse

The son of Johannes Schafgans, Theodor (1859–1907), took over the studio in 1892 and converted it into an Art Nouveau studio . As a documentarist and technical photographer, for example, he photographed the first Rhine bridge in Bonn.

Theo sheep goose

With Theo Schafgans (1892–1976), who headed the studio for almost 60 years, “the avant-garde of German art photography found its way to Bonn” from 1911 (according to the German Society for Photography - see web links). He studied at the Bavarian State College for Photography in Munich with Frank Eugene Smith and introduced "a painterly portrait style" in Bonn . In 1919 he co-founded the Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner (GDL), today the German Photographic Academy (DFA), and with his portraits was one of the most important representatives of German portrait photography .

In October 1944, the house burned down completely after a bomb attack. Over 10,000 glass negatives from 89 years of work were stored in the cellar . Almost everything was destroyed. The family, who were on the run through Germany, returned in 1945. Almost everything of the photographic equipment was destroyed. Theo Schafgans was able to procure new equipment within a short period of time, so that one year after the war he was able to look after more than 1,000 portrait customers again.

In 1950 Theo Schafgans took part in the first photokina in Cologne and received the Ewald Mataré Medal for his Adenauer picture . On January 2, 1967, he handed the studio over to his son Hans and noted in his pocket diary “Beginning of retirement life”.

Hans sheep goose

Hans Schafgans' mother was Jewish who lost two relatives in Auschwitz . As the son of a Jewish mother, Hans had to leave the Beethoven grammar school and spent months in hiding on cargo ships on the Rhine .

photographer

Hans Schafgans completed an apprenticeship as a photographer with his father. He concentrated on architectural photography. In 1952, the photography guild awarded him master recognition.

Hans Schafgans continuously documented the reconstruction and expansion of Bonn into the federal capital for over twenty years . His compositions are captivating with their clear lines and emphasis on forms.

After Hans Schafgans took over his father's studio, he devoted himself almost exclusively to portraits. For him, it's not about the external appearance, he said in a portrait of the Bonn magazine “Protestant” (see literature), which “can only provide a superficial picture” and “serves our pigeonhole thinking” . It is about the "inner personality" that he wants to work out.

Numerous celebrities from the Federal Republic of Germany had their portraits by Hans Schafgans. This also included - up to Johannes Rau - almost all federal presidents .

The post-war archive with the works of Theo and Hans Schafgans (since 1945), which has existed for many decades, contains almost a million negatives.

Author and citizen sheep goose

In addition to his work as a photographer, Hans Schafgans wrote. As an author, he has published several novels , "semi-autographic stories" and opera libretti . The people of Bonn also know him as a contentious citizen, for example in the protests against the government's move to Berlin or in disputes over urban cultural policy . Favorite subject: the Bonn Opera .

Like his father, Hans Schafgans was married to a Jewish woman and was involved in the Jewish community for many years. In the 80s he was a member of the board of the synagogue community . He confessed that he was fascinated by the “immanent reason” of Judaism . “Man does not need dogmatics, but wisdom” and this wisdom is fed from the “awareness of one's own tradition” .

Exhibitions

The portrait in the XX. Century. The photographers Theo and Hans Schafgans

Exhibition opening by Hans Schafgans: ›Houses - Streets - Objects‹ - motifs from the post-war period in Bonn on March 31, 2006

Of 9 December 2005 to 9 April 2006 took place in the German Historical Museum in Berlin , the exhibition "The Portrait in XX. Century. The photographers Theo and Hans Schafgans ” took place.

Boris Schafgans, son of Hans Schafgans, as curator of the Berlin exhibition had put together 330 exhibits from the Schafgans studio, which showed the work of Theo and Hans Schafgans. “The Schafgans photography studio” , so in the text of the Historical Museum, “is one of the oldest in Europe today. The portraits of people that have emerged since then reflect epochs, upheavals and the path of German portrait photography in their various aspects. "

Regarding architectural photography by Hans Schafgans, it says: “The architectural photographer Hans Schafgans has been photographing a large number of public buildings and residential buildings for authorities and architects since the late 1940s. For him, who also worked as a poet, essayist and later as a novelist, architectural photography narrative process. Looking ahead, he describes the permanent character of the cityscape, which is based on the plans of the fifties and sixties. "

›Houses - Streets - Objects‹ - motifs from the Bonn post-war period

Hans Schafgans with son Boris at the opening of the exhibition

On March 31, 2006, the exhibition “› Houses - Streets - Objects ‹- Motifs from the post-war period in Bonn” opened at “Bouvier” in Bonn . It could be seen there until May 5, 2006 and showed architectural photos by Hans Schafgans. The works cover the period from 1949 to the 1960s.

The organizer wrote about the exhibition: “In addition to the captivating details in which Hans Schafgans describes architecture, living spaces and everyday scenarios, the exhibition also shows material photographs of objects from industry and advertising that were produced in Schafgans' studio at the time. In the context, images condense into narrative documents with a cultural-historical reference. "

Works (fiction)

literature

  • Theo Schafgans: Six decades behind the camera. My life as a photographer , in: Bonner Geschichtsblätter Volume 36, Bonner Heimat- und Geschichtsverein , Stadtarchiv Bonn 1984, ISSN  0068-0052 , DNB 860040674 .
  • Frank Günter Zehnder: Schafgans - 150 years of photography , Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Wienand, Cologne 2004, ISBN 978-3-87909-840-8 .
  • Joachim Gerhardt, Lisa Inhoffen: Portrait of a photographer - visit to the studio with Hans Schafgans . in: Protestant - No. 26, Bonn, March / April 2006 ( PDF page 3 of 8 ).
  • Tuya Roth: What seems like a detail is really the whole of architectural photography. The architectural photographic work of Hans Schafgans from 1950 to 1969 , in: Schafgans - 150 years of photography , pp. 120–133, Wienand, Cologne 2004, ISBN 978-3-87909-840-8 .
  • Tuya Roth: Hans Schafgans. Photographs of Bonn architecture in the fifties and sixties , dissertation at the University of Bonn , 2007, DNB 986745103 .
  • Tuya Roth: Hans Schafgans for his 80th birthday - A life for photography , in: frame # 2 yearbook of the German Society for Photography , German Society for Photography / Steidl, Göttingen 2008, pp. 160–168, DNB 981131131 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bonn photographer Hans Schafgans is dead
  2. ↑ F. [ritz] H. [ansen]: Theo Schafgans (Nekrolog), in: Photographische Chronik , XIV.Jg., 1907, p. 315.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sheep goose, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonn
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 2015