Johann Hamann (photographer)

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Mortzenhaus , Alter Wandrahm № 20 and 21, Hamburg, Johann Hamann, photo taken before 1885

Johann Hinrich W. Hamann (born January 26, 1859 in Reinfeld , † December 11, 1935 in Hamburg ) was a German photographer .

Life and first successes as a photographer

Johann Hamann attended a school in Reinfeld, where he was born, where Joachim Mähl taught. Around 1875 he completed an apprenticeship as a printer in Oldesloe . At the suggestion of his uncle Hans Haamann he switched to photography and found work as a retoucher in Daguerre's studio by Emilie Bieber Bäckerstraße in the Great 26 in Hamburg. The studio had specialized in hand-colored portraits, which could hardly be distinguished from paintings. According to the guild rules Hamann went then for a long time as a photographer's apprentice on the roll throughout Germany and studied in prestigious studios new laboratory, photographic and cinematographic techniques know.

In 1887 Hamann married Christine Kaffka (1861–1927), who was a trained retoucher, which at the time was an unusual profession for women. The couple had children Heinrich , Magdalene Anne (1887–1903), Katharina Klara L, called Käthe (1898–1990) and Bertha Marie F. (1901–1987). On April 1, 1889, Johann Hamann opened a daylight studio in Hamburg's Gängeviertel at Neustädter Strasse 66-68 , in which his wife retouched. In the studio they received many customers for portraits and group photos. The clientele was then expanded to include painters, sculptors and inventors, whose work Hamann captured in the picture. The photographer had a “photo column” set up by Carl Ramspeck, with which he could automatically produce cost-effective ferrotypes within a few minutes .

With the completion of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse , which significantly changed the Gängeviertel, Hamann lost the previous customers in 1893 . Together with his eldest son, who had learned photography from his father towards the end of the 19th century, he set up a studio for photographs of all kinds , which has largely been preserved as a rare evidence of the past. Hamann used glass negatives in the formats 13 x 18 cm and 18 x 24 cm, occasionally also 24 x 30 cm. As a photographer, he dealt extensively with stereoscopy . The companies Kaiserpanorama from Berlin and Léon & Lévy from Paris were among the customers of the pictures from Hamburg and Altona, but also of the 14th Kieler Woche that took place in 1895 and the simultaneous inauguration of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal .

Hamann offered many motifs in his studio: for school lessons he visited the zoological garden , where he photographed animals. He also offered genre pictures, photographs of buildings and architecture, iron constructions and pictures of farm animals. His pictures of carrier pigeons, which he had taken under complicated conditions, were shown at the exhibition of the North German Photographic Society in Hamburg in 1899. For this, the photographer received a bronze medal and the "Prize of Honor". Hamann was very interested in Hamburg and the surrounding area. At the turn of the century, he photographed life in the port of Hamburg . The series of pictures also appeared as a slide in black and white and color and was used for local history lectures. Publishers and the press often bought Hamann's pictures of the port and various parts of Hamburg. They were also often used as postcard motifs.

Working for the HAPAG shipping company

In 1899 Hamann received the largest order in the company's history: Albert Ballin , the new General Director of the HAPAG shipping company, engaged him to produce several stereographies of the newly built express steamer Deutschland . He was also supposed to portray all the captains of HAPAG. Ballin wanted to be able to assign the returning captains correctly. In Johann and Heinrich Hamann's studio, numerous cartes-de-visites by seafarers were created up to 1906 . 135 of these pictures have been preserved in an elaborately designed slip-in album with leather cover. The “Captains of the Hamburg-America Line” are now kept in the Museum of Art and Industry .

J. Hamann: Lunch in the emigration halls, 1909

In addition, Hamann had the time on behalf of HAPAG to document the demolition of the notorious Gängeviertel and harbor scenes and in 1909 to create an important photo series of the emigration halls on the Veddel . The pictures were taken as part of structural extensions of the shipping company. Many pictures were only taken because flash powder was invented in 1887, which opened up new possibilities for photography outside of the studio. However, the powder only burned a few seconds and was flammable due to the magnesium content and not comparable to the flashlight commonly used today. Hamann was the first Hamburg photographer to work with this powder outside of his studio from 1890 onwards.

When HAPAG's orders became rarer during the First World War , Johann Hamann withdrew more and more from the company and left it to his son. In 1932 a chimney fell on the glass roof and destroyed the studio. Johann Hinrich W. Hamann died in her new studio at Valentinskamp 35 in December 1935.

estate

Käthe and Heinrich Hamann managed the works left by their father. After her death, which received monument protection office in Hamburg , the rights to the images and the negatives that have been preserved in the image archive. The Museum of Arts and Crafts bought Hamman's large studio camera including a wooden tripod next to the HAPAG captains' photo book.

Works

including investments

  • Johann and Heinrich Hamann, Paul Wutcke, Carl-Friedrich Höge, Rudolf Dührkoop : Around the Gängeviertel Hamburg 1889–1930 (=  Edition Photo Library XIV ). Dirk Nishen , Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-88940-214-3 , p. 31 .
  • Johann Hamann, Timm Starl : Hamburg around the turn of the century . Dirk Nishen, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-88940-009-4 .
  • Johann Hamann, Ulrich Keller (Foreword): My field is the world: the Hamburg emigration halls (in Johann Hamann's photographs (1909)) (=  Edition Photo Tank 1 ). König, Cologne 1981, ISBN 3-88375-012-3 , p. 80 .

literature

  • Dieter Lorenz, Ulrich Pohlmann: The Kaiser Panorama. A company of August Fuhrmann. Edited by Münchner Stadtmuseum, Photography Collection, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-934609-09-9
  • Gabriele Betancourt Nuñez: Hamann, Johann . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 165-167 .
  • Landesbildstelle Hamburg (Ed.): Historical Hamburg. Johann and Heinrich Hamann - The life's work of a photographer family. With a foreword by Helmut Schmidt. Verlag Christians, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-7672-1170-X
  • Fritz Kempe (arrangement): Inventory catalog photography between daguerreotype and art photography , p. 136. Museum for Art and Industry, Hamburg 1977

Remarks

  1. ↑ It is possible that Hans Hamann was co-owner of the Hamann & Köhnen photographic studio from 1872 to 1874 , which was listed in the Altona part of the Hamburg address book at Reichenstrasse 14. The photographer Wilhelm Köhnen was based in Altona from 1872 to 1900.
  2. ↑ Several statements made by the author Gabriele Betancourt Nuñez, whose text served as a template, are incorrect: Emilie Bieber's studio in “Gr. Bäckerstraße 26 “was given up in 1872 at the latest. Daguerreotypes were no longer made around 1875.
  3. ↑ Incorrect information: Around 1875 there was no guild of professional photographers and / or photographers' guild. The “Walz” mentioned here did not exist and the guild was therefore not the cause of “wanderings”. In 1902 Carl Kesselhuth was one of the co-founders of the oldest photographers 'guild in Germany, the "Photographers' Guild of Hildesheim".
  4. ↑ Incorrect information: The profession of "retoucher" was by no means unusual at this time (1887). As early as 1872, attention was drawn to women's work in industry. In the Photographische Correspondenz (1873, no. 104, p. 33 ff.) An article appeared with the title: “The work of women in the Viennese studios”. The following three areas of activity are mentioned here: preparing plates, copying images and retouching. Among those who retouched, the most skilled were used in addition to painting portraits.
  5. ↑ Carl Ramspeck & Bert. [Hold] Schäfer: Apparatus for the automatic recording and completion of photographs, patent granted on September 13, 1889, (Source: Ludwig Cabinet (Hrsg.): Photographische Korrespondenz , 27 Jg., Verlag der Photographische Correspondenz, Vienna, Leipzig, 1890, p. 102). In 1890 the Hamburg photographer Conrad Bernitt developed the Bosco automat .
  6. ↑ Incorrect information: At the time there were no walk-in customers who made a significant contribution to sales. Since photography was expensive, you searched max. open a photographic studio once a year. Likewise, you didn't go to the studio by chance, but purposefully. “In order to give a good picture of yourself”, you had yourself photographed / portrayed in representative clothing. “The main business day of the week was Sunday, which brought about 80 to 90 percent of all person photographs .” (Ludwig Hoerner: Das photographische Gewerbe in Deutschland 1839–1914 . GFW-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-87258-000-0 , p . 38ff.).
  7. ↑ This will have been commissioned work. The customer for the inauguration ceremony was possibly the chocolate manufacturer Ludwig Stollwerck , (source: Martin Loiperdinger: Film & Schokolade: Stollwerck's Shops with Living Pictures , Volume 4 of KINtop Schriften, Stroemfeld / Roter Stern, 1999, p. 85.).
  8. ↑ Incorrect information: There was no company called "Kaiserpanorama". This was the name given to the popular and large picture viewing devices in Berlin, which were owned and operated by August Fuhrmann . Over the years he has issued more than 250 licenses. It is not clear whether Fuhrmann commissioned the stereoscopic recordings or whether he selected Hamann from an existing offer.
  9. ↑ On January 1, 2015, the State Archives took over the photo holdings of the Monument Protection Office.

Web links

Commons : Johann Hamann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Photographic Correspondence  - Sources and Full Texts
personal data
SURNAME Hamann, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hamann, Johann Hinrich W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Reinfeld
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1935
Place of death Hamburg