Hans Wagner (photographer)

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Hans Wagner (born March 13, 1909 in Berlin ; † June 8, 1981 in Vlotho ) was a German photographer and owner of the postcard publisher of the same name in the East Westphalian city ​​of Vlotho in North Rhine-Westphalia .

Life

Wagner was born in Berlin and moved to Vlotho with his mother in 1921, who married a second time here in her homeland. He learned the trade of a businessman and became unemployed in the early 1930s. During the Second World War, Wagner became a photo reporter for current reports from Berlin and on the fronts. In 1943 he was captured in Africa by the Americans and was interned in Kansas . He was then released and found his photographic archive intact in Wetzlar . In 1946 he founded the postcard publisher Hans Wagner in Vlotho. In 1977 he gave up the management of the company, but continued to take photos until his death.

Artistic life

Inspired by the youth movement of the 1920s, he began to photograph his homeland. He had increasing success in selling his pictures, so that in 1932 he was able to set up his own postcard publisher in Vlotho. In 1937 he was employed as the head of the advertising image archive of the Leica company in Wetzlar.

Order from the Finnish Tourism Authority

In 1939 the Finnish tourist authority commissioned him to produce a representative color slide documentation of the whole country of Finland with a view to the Helsinki Olympics in 1940; the photos were not published due to the Second World War. During the Second World War he worked as a photo reporter in Berlin and on various fronts. The photo book about Finland was published in Finnish in 1985 in the Viimeinen kesä series by Gummerus Verlag, Jyväskylä, ISBN 951-864-044-0 by Margarethe Wagner with texts by Eila Pennannen. The many Agfa slide film photographs and other images give a historical insight into Finland from 1939, as described in the title “Unique color photo documentation from the Finnish summer 1939” ( Ainutlaatuinen värivalokuvakertmus suomesta kesällä 1939 ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Photo heritage: “Hans Wagner's estate in the Herford municipal archive” , accessed on April 9, 2016.
  2. ^ History of Vlotho , accessed April 9, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Wagner, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1981
Place of death Vlotho