Helmut Gernsheim

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Helmut Erich Robert Kuno Gernsheim (born March 1, 1913 in Munich ; † July 20, 1995 in Lugano , Switzerland ) was a photographer , photography historian and collector . In his life he collected thousands of pictures and photographic equipment. In 1952 he discovered the world's first photograph, view from the study , which Joseph Nicéphore Nièpce had made in 1826. He was married to Alison Gernsheim , with whom he worked closely. The art historian Walter Gernsheim , who also emigrated, was a brother.

Von Gernsheim discovered the world's first photograph, created in the early autumn of 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Nièpce

Life

In 1933 Gernsheim began to study history at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . But since he was persecuted by the Nazis at the university - he was accused of coming from a "Jewish" family - he had to leave the university in 1933. From 1934 to 1936 he trained as a photographer at the Bavarian State College for Photography . In 1937, photographs by Gernsheim were shown as part of the International Photo Exhibition in Paris. He was forbidden to visit this exhibition. When his employer sent him to London to take photographs at the Tate Gallery , he took the opportunity and stayed where he'd spent about half his life. Soon he was able to present his works to the public in the Mayfair district .

In 1942 he married Alison Eames. During the Second World War he photographed important buildings for the Warburg Institute and for the National Buildings Record . Exhibitions at the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Churchill Club followed . In 1946 he received British citizenship. After the war he began on the advice of Beaumont Newhall (born June 22, 1908 in Lynn, Massachusetts, † February 26, 1993 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, American author, photographer, art and photo historian and curator) with the collecting of photographs. He managed to bring together the world's largest collection on the history of photography, images and technical devices. He published numerous books and articles and exhibited his photos several times. In 1963 he sold his collection to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin . The contemporary part of the photo archive has been managed by the International Photography Forum of the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums in Mannheim since 2002 . Gernsheim settled in Castagnola / Lugano in 1964. His wife Alison died in 1969. He worked and lived in this place with his second wife Irène, née Guénin, until his death. There he devoted himself to his second collection "Contemporary Collection of Photography".

Awards

Exhibitions

Fonts (selection)

  • Julia Margaret Cameron; her life and photographic work. London 1948. About 19th century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron . Numerous reprints.
  • Lewis Caroll - Photographer. New York 1949
  • With Alison Gernsheim: The History of Photography. From the Earliest Use of the Camera Obscura in the Eleventh Century Up to 1914 , London, New York, Toronto 1955. Extended reprints 1969 and 1985.
  • Helmut Gernsheim, Alison Gernsheim: Daguerre. The History of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype . London, New York 1956. (About the photography pioneer Louis Daguerre ).
  • Helmut Gernsheim: The 150th Anniversary of Photography. In: History of Photography 1 (1977), pp. 3-8.
  • Helmut Gernsheim: History of Photography. The first hundred years , translated from English by Matthias Fienbork, Propylaen-Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna 1983 (= Propylaen-Kunstgeschichte, Volume 26), ISBN 3-549-05223-5 . The English original as:
The Origins of Photography . New York 1982.

literature

  • François Brunet: Inventing the Literary Prehistory of Photography: From François Arago to Helmut Gernsheim. In: History of Photography 34 (2010), pp. 368-372.
  • Peter Sager: Helmut Gernsheim - The collector . Die Zeit, July 28, 1989, available online. [1] .
  • Alfried Wieczorek, Claude W. Sui (Eds.): Helmut Gernsheim. Pioneer of Photography , Ostfildern-Ruit 2003, ISBN 978-3775713801 .
  • Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 1: A – K. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 187-189.
  • Gernsheim, Helmut , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 368

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Helmut and Alison Gernsheim: An Inventory of Their Collection of Photographic Copy Prints at the Harry Ransom Center , accessed May 28, 2016
  2. ↑ www.rem-mannheim.de
  3. ^ FAZ from September 6, 2012 Information on the exhibition in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
personal data
SURNAME Gernsheim, Helmut
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gernsheim, Helmut Erich Robert Kuno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer, photography historian and collector
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1995
Place of death Lugano