Johannes Mühler

Alfred Johannes Mühler (born February 18, 1876 in Frohburg ; † April 10, 1952 in Leipzig ) was a German photographer .

Life

Johannes Mühler was born the son of master baker Karl Emil Alfred Mühler and also learned the bakery trade . His mother died when he was five years old. He and his half-brother Paul Rudolf grew up in Frohburg under the care of his father's third wife. In 1901 he went to Leipzig and trained as a chemographer there. At the same time he attended the Royal Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Trade in Leipzig. As an employee he worked as a chemigrapher and at the same time carried out photo assignments for his company. In 1902 he married his former classmate Marie Anna Hermsdorf, the daughter of the church servant there. The couple had two daughters. From around 1922 he worked as a press photographer . His preference was for landscape and city shots; He had a particular photographic weakness for his place of birth Frohburg and the villages and manors in the area and also for Saxon castles and palaces. Johannes Mühler took photographs until he was the last year of his life. He left behind a rich inventory of contemporary historical documents in the form of photographs, in particular of Frohburg and its surroundings ( Kohren-Sahlis , Gnandstein , Greifenhain , Wolftitz , Benndorf and many others).

plant

A large part of his estate was acquired by the Deutsche Fotothek Dresden in 1984 . It comprises around 4,000 glass plates, some of which were in a condition that was unsafe for conservation and some of which had become almost unusable due to large-scale delamination. Mühler worked almost exclusively in the formats 9 × 12 and 13 × 18 and was active throughout Germany between 1910 and 1952. His photos were used for the press, on postcards, in home calendars and in photo books; they were also collected by residents of his native town and are still present in some families today.

literature

• In consecrated places and from olden days. 6 atmospheric artist-nature photos in the finest copper gravure. Berlin-Steglitz undated [1920].
• Monastery life in the old Middle Ages according to contemporary records, memoirs and chronicles (with 16 panels by Johannes Mühler). Leipzig, 1921.
• Memories of Leipzig . Leipzig (Althoff), 1946 (photos by Johannes Mühler).
• Elke Leinenweber: The Johannes Mühler Collection in the Mölkau Camera and Photo Museum . Development of a documentation system for the field of historical photography . A case study (thesis at the University of Technology, Economics and Culture Leipzig; 2 volumes). Leipzig 2000.
• Johannes Mühler. Secured moments. From the family albums of a Leipzig photographer , compiled and commented on by Katrin and Klaus Sohl. Eudora-Verlag, Leipzig 2014. ISBN 978-3-938533-55-0 .

Exhibitions

• Pictures of a lost time. Work and everyday life during the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich . Photographs by Johannes Mühler and Paul Brandt. Exhibition from February 10th to April 15th 2001 in the Camera and Photo Museum Leipzig in Mölkau .

Web links

• Johannes Mühler in the Deutsche Fotothek