Jürgen Vollmer

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Jürgen Vollmer (born July 11, 1939 in Hamburg ) is a German photographer whose career has mainly taken place abroad.

Life

In April 1961, a few months before he moved to Paris from his hometown Hamburg , Vollmer photographed the then unknown Beatles as a photography student . John Lennon used one of these photos in 1975 as the cover of his solo album Rock 'n' Roll and in the same year wrote in his foreword to Vollmer's photo book Rock 'n' Roll Times : “Jürgen Vollmer was the first photographer to capture the beauty and spirit of the Beatles . We tried very hard to find someone with his touch [...] nobody could. "

The Beatles owe their trademark to Vollmer, the mushroom head hairstyle . John Lennon is quoted in the Beatles Anthology as follows: “Jürgen had a flattened-down hairstyle with a fringe in the front, which we rather took to. We went over to his place and there and then he cut our hair into the same style. " Even Paul McCartney confirmed several times in interviews that Vollmer created the Beatle haircut, when she saw him in October 1961 in Paris attended. Even as a schoolboy in the mid-1950s, Vollmer had always combed his hair forward, which was very unusual in Hamburg at the time. In the group of young artists who were friends of the Beatles in Hamburg , Vollmer was the first to have such a hairstyle.

Paul McCartney wrote in his foreword to Vollmer's 1997 book From Hamburg to Hollywood : "[Jürgens] sense of style and excellent photographic skills were to have a profound effect throughout our careers."

In Paris Vollmer was initially assistant to William Klein , for whose first two feature films he then also took the stills in the late 1960s , for the first, Who are you, Polly Magoo? (1966) also the poster photo. In addition to his photo reports for magazines and book publishers, Vollmer also frequently took pictures during filming, including two films with Catherine Deneuve . One of his photos of Romy Schneider in Chimney No. 4 (1966) became the poster photo for the film. His photos of Rudolf Nureyev , taken in 1966 while filming a ballet film, were published in 1975 in the USA in the Nureyev photo book in Paris .

Vollmer lived in New York in the 1970s and 1980s and in Los Angeles in the early 1990s . In addition to his work as a photo journalist, he was art director for various magazines for the first ten years . Two photo books emerged from his numerous travel reports: African Roots (1979) and Sex Appeal (1976). For the latter, William S. Burroughs wrote the preface, which ends with the words, “[…] [Vollmers] photos are realer than the flesh, realer than death”.

For French films (including four by Alain Resnais ), Vollmer traveled to Europe several times for the duration of the shooting and photographed Jeanne Moreau , Gérard Depardieu , Isabelle Adjani and Dirk Bogarde , for example .

From the mid-1980s, Vollmer also took the set and advertising photos for American films for ten years, such as films by Francis Ford Coppola and Roman Polański . He photographed Robert Redford , Tom Cruise , John Travolta , Madonna and Cher , and his photos have been used several times for film posters, for example for The City Shark and Lord of the Tides .

Vollmer returned to Europe in the mid-1990s. He lived initially in Hamburg for a short time and then for a longer period in Paris, where he photographed several times during filming, including for a film with Isabelle Huppert . His photos for the film It begins today by Bertrand Tavernier were published in an elaborate book about the film, one of which was also a film poster.

Vollmer has been back in Hamburg since 2000. Since then he has worked exclusively abroad, mostly as a set photographer for American films that were shot outside the USA . He photographed Gene Hackman , Denzel Washington , Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and made the poster photos for From Hell , Sin Eater - The Soul of Evil and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen . His portraits of female film stars often exude a “mysterious sensuality”, was stated in a large article about Vollmer in the German edition of Rolling Stone magazine in 2004 .

His Beatles photos have been published in various books. The Beatles in Hamburg (Schirmer / Mosel 2003) and From Hamburg to Hollywood (Genesis Publ. 1999) are particularly mentioned . In 2009, Steidl-Verlag published his retrospective photo book On Filmsets and Other Locations . A book of memoirs entitled How I Cut John Lennon's Hair, Run Away From Romy Schneider and Made Catherine Deneuve Laugh, was published in May 2013.

literature

  • Thorsten Knublauch and Axel Korinth: Come, Give Me Your Hand - The Beatles in Germany 1960-1970 , Books on Demand GmbH, 2008, ISBN 978-38334-8530-5 .
  • Jürgen Vollmer: On Filmsets and Other Locations , Steidl, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3865215987 .
  • Jürgen Vollmer: How I cut John Lennon's hair, ran away from Romy Schneider and made Catherine Deneuve laugh: Memories of a photographer , Edel Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3841901934 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Vollmer, Jürgen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg