Hans Windisch (photographer)

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Hans Windisch (* 21st February 1891 in Niederlößnitz ; † 15. June 1965 at the Chiemsee ) was a German photographer , best-selling - author , graphic artist and illustrator .

Live and act

Youth and breaking out of middle-class circumstances

Windisch was born in Niederlößnitz as the son of factory owner Clemens Windisch. With secondary school leaving certificate, he left high school and completed an apprenticeship in an arts and crafts studio in Dresden between 1907 and 1909 . In 1911 he switched to the arts and crafts school and the Dresden Art Academy , where in 1911 he acquired the specialist teaching certificate for drawing at higher and technical schools. As a freelance graphic artist and painter , he earned his living until 1914 when he had to fight in the First World War as a soldier. Due to his war experiences, he left the church, he also broke with his bourgeois past and was close to the workers' organizations.

Activity as a visual artist

In the early 1920s, "as a painter and graphic artist, he created valuable bibliographic portfolios and" cycles "that are being rediscovered and reprinted today." The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas describes his style as a "connection between expressionism and Constructivism , which is reminiscent of Fritz Lang's later cinema classic " Metropolis ". Windisch's work changed from high-quality art in small editions to the illustration of more common works in larger editions. After Rittner's Die Brücke 1920 for Ullstein with an original lithograph , he worked for the following years as a draftsman and illustrator with the Neufeld & Henius publishing house , also in Berlin . In 1922 he created the graphic portfolio Ten Lithographs for Charlotte Bara 's Danse Macabre. Charlotte Bara was an expressive dancer at the time. The folder we were looking for was reprinted in 2000.

In 1924 he won the competition for the new publisher's logo for the JHW Dietz Nachf. Bonn publishing house , which is still in use today.

Start of the photographic career

In parallel to his graphic work, he completed a photo-technical training. In 1926 he became the editor -in-chief of Photo-Schaja's in-house magazine in Munich. In the following year, Windisch published the first volume (1927 Annual Review ) of Das deutsche Lichtbild by the Berlin publishing house Robert & Bruno Schultz, which was “enthusiastically welcomed” by Reich Art Warden Edwin Redslob and Bauhaus professor László Moholy-Nagy : “The photographic process is unparalleled compared to the previously known optical processes. ”This edition was the only one that was printed using the gravure printing process .

Towards the end of the twenties Windisch left graphics and turned to advertising for photography as well as photography itself, in particular imparting photographic knowledge to interested “amateurs”, such as his writing Knipsen - but with brains ! A guide for amateurs who want to take good pictures was announced in 1929. In 1930 he dealt with My Friend, the Plasmat ! with advertisement for the Görlitz opto-mechanical industrial institute Hugo Meyer and their Plasmat lenses. In 1933, Photo-Schaja published his first non-fiction bestseller, Der Photo-Amateur , which had several editions in the 1930s.

During the Nazi era , he was able to continue working as a photographer, although he disagreed with politics, as those in power “valued this medium”. "His expressionist graphic work, which could have been considered" degenerate "in terms of National Socialist aesthetics, was known only to a few initiates." For professional reasons, he had to join the Reich Chamber of Literature. After the Second World War, he described this time as an "intellectual concentration camp in the harmless domain of phototechnical textbooks."

Cooperation with Heering

In the mid-1930s, Windisch met the publisher Walther Heering, who had founded a photo publishing house in Halle in 1932. In 1936 Heering and Windisch brought out the New Photo School , which made Windisch an international bestselling author. After the German first edition of 20,000 copies, the world's most popular textbook on photography was published in several editions in English and French until 1939.

In 1935, Windisch suffered a serious accident. Due to his consequent handicap, he was retired from the Wehrmacht . Windisch moved with his wife from Berlin to the Chiemsee , where they lived in seclusion and, besides photography, also dealt with alternative horticultural techniques. In 1940 he began working on his manuscript Fuehrer und Verführte , in which he, influenced by Kantian philosophy , settled accounts with National Socialism . During the war, the publisher Heering followed him to the Chiemsee, to Seebruck , from where he later ran his publishing house. Immediately after the war, Heering submitted Windisch's manuscript to the US military authorities and received permission to print. In 1946 Führer und Verführte appeared. An analysis of German fate , the 1947 Windisch's Genius and Demon. The case of Germany. A manifest followed. In 1948 Windisch wrote "Daimonion". About the human , which appeared in Augsburg in 1948. With the third letter he closed the two previous ones and considered them to be irrelevant.

At Heering's request, Windisch had already worked on the manuscript for a garden book during World War II, which could no longer be published during wartime due to a lack of paper. The small garden book appeared in 1946 as a useful non-fiction book in the post-war period . For the second edition that followed in 1949, Windisch's wife Ilse, a trained graphic artist, created the numerous color illustrations, and in 1958 the third, expanded edition followed.

International bestselling author

The most successful was his New Photo School , which appeared in many revised and expanded editions during his lifetime. In addition to numerous revised German editions, the “trilogy with the thematic complexes» technology «,» design «and» color photography «” was also translated into Finnish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish and Czech after the Second World War. In total, the edition reached a height of 580,000 copies.

The writer Sten Nadolny wrote in 2005: “Never before or after did so many people in Germany know what the relationship between the aperture, exposure time and depth of field. A writer and thoughtful amateur photographer named Hans Windisch put aside his (uncomfortably simplistic) attempts to separate the guilt and fate of the Germans and then ruminate them again. Instead, he updated his »New Photography School«, which was written before the war and has since been forgotten became a millionaire. "

According to Windisch

After Windisch died in 1965, his photo school was continued by the photographer Theo Kisselbach. Its revised edition had a circulation of 280,000 in Germany in 1973. In 1976 and 1977 Goldmann Verlag issued additional licensed editions. "With the disappearance of the exposure meter for photo amateurs" due to the technological changes in the photo industry, his books were delisted. However: "Today a small group of amateur photographers is dealing with his instructions in discussion lists on the Internet."

Heering-Verlag also disappeared, it was taken over by Ringier in the 1970s and renamed Ringier Deutschland GmbH . This was settled in 2001; from the photo activities survived only the fotoMagazin .

plant

Images (selection)

  • Thaddäus Rittner: The bridge. Ullstein, Berlin 1920.
  • Graphics portfolio Ten lithographs for Charlotte Bara's Danse Macabre. 1922. Reprinted in 2000.
  • Edgar Allan Poe : Puzzling and Scary Stories. Neufeld & Henius, Berlin 1923.
  • Stendhal : Italian short stories. Neufeld & Henius, Berlin 1923.
  • Gustave Flaubert : Madame Bovary. Neufeld & Henius, Berlin 1924.
  • Henryk Sienkiewicz : Quo vadis? Neufeld & Henius, Berlin 1924.
  • Publisher's signature for the publishing house JHW Dietz Nachf. Bonn , 1924.
  • Book cover for Friedrich Wendel : The 19th century in caricatures. Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1925.

Non-fiction books (selection)

  • Snap - but with your head! A guide for amateurs who want to take good pictures. Ullstein special issue No. 127/128. Ullstein, Berlin 1929.
  • My friend, the plasmat! [Advertising leaflet d. Optical-Mech. Industry institute H. Meyer, Görlitz, for the Plasmat-Photographer-Apparat]. H. Meyer, Görlitz 1930.
  • The photo amateur. A teaching u. Reference book. Photo-Schaja, Munich 1933.
  • Together with Georg Weigand (drawings): Small photography course for Marion. Heering, Harzburg 1937.
  • Small frame hunting for things and people. Attention - admission! 1st - 12th Th., Heering, Harzburg 1937.
  • The new photo school. 1st - 20th Th., Heering, Harzburg 1937.
  • The new photo school. 1-10 Th., Heering, Harzburg 1938.
  • Le Photographe de la nouvelle école. 1-10 Th., Heering, Harzburg 1938.
  • School of color photography. 1st - 22nd Th., Heering-Verlag, Harzburg 1939.
  • The little garden book. Heering, Seebruck am Chiemsee 1946.
  • The Manual of modern photography. 2nd, rev. ed., Heering, Vaduz 1956.
  • Den nye fotoboken. Dreyer, Oslo 1956.
  • Den nye fotobog. 2. Practice. Skrifola, Copenhagen 1956.
  • Den nye fotobog. 1. Teknik. 4th rev. og gennemsete udg., Skrifola, Copenhagen 1958.
  • Manual de fotografía moderna. Ed. Omega, Barcelona 1958.
  • The new photo school. 3. Color photography. 6th ed., 91-100. Tsd., Heering, Seebruck am Chiemsee 1958.
  • Uusi valokuvauskoulu. Otava, Helsingissä 1959.
  • Nieuwe fotoschool. Naar de 14th verb. uitg. voor Nederland bew. by AGJ Kuipers. Elsevier, Amsterdam, Brussels 1960.
  • Nová škola photography. Státní Nakl. technické literatury, Prague 1960.
  • The new photo school. 1. The technology. 16., through Ed., 251-260. Tsd., Heering, Seebruck am Chiemsee 1964.
  • The new photo school. 2. The design. 111-115 Tsd., Heering, Seebruck am Chiemsee 1964.

Fonts

  • Leaders and seduced. An analysis of German fate. Heering, Seebruck 1946.
  • Genius and demon. The case of Germany. A manifesto. Heering, Seebruck 1947.
  • "Daimonion". About the human. Augsburg 1948.

Editing

  • The German photograph. Annual review 1927. Robert & Bruno Schultz, Berlin 1927. ( sample photos ( memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )).
  • The German photograph. Annual show 1928/29. Robert & Bruno Schultz, Berlin 1929.
    • Further editions 1931, 1935, 1937, 1938.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Windisch: Guide and seduced. An analysis of German fate. Seebruck 1946, p. 288.
  2. ↑ a b Rüdiger Zimmermann: How Dietz came to the queue - the invention of the publisher's signet . S. 66 [8] ( library.fes.de [PDF; 126 kB ; accessed on September 4, 2012]).
  3. ↑ a b c Rüdiger Zimmermann: How Dietz came to the queue - the invention of the publisher's signet . S. 67 [9] ( library.fes.de [PDF; 126 kB ; accessed on September 4, 2012]).
  4. ^ László Moholy-Nagy: The unparalleled photography . In: Das Deutsche Lichtbild. No. 1, 1927, SX
  5. ↑ Genius and Demon. The case of Germany. A manifesto. Seebruck 1947, p. 228.
  6. ↑ Hans Windisch: Daimonion. About the human. Augsburg 1948, p. 6.
  7. ^ Rüdiger Zimmermann: How Dietz came to the snake - the invention of the publisher's signet . S. 68 [10] ( library.fes.de [PDF; 126 kB ; accessed on September 4, 2012]).
  8. ↑ Sten Nadolny: View into the family album. From the art of the pose to digital oblivion. In: Cicero. Political Culture Magazine. No. 2, March 2005, p. 125.
  9. ↑ a b Rüdiger Zimmermann: How Dietz came to the queue - the invention of the publisher's signet . S. 71 [13] ( library.fes.de [PDF; 126 kB ; accessed on September 4, 2012]).
personal data
SURNAME Windisch, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer, graphic artist and illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederloessnitz
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1965
Place of death at the Chiemsee