Juan Guzmán (photographer)

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Juan Guzmán , b. Hans Gutmann , (born October 28, 1911 in Cologne ; † November 6, 1982 in Mexico City ), also known as "Juanito", was a German-Spanish-Mexican photographer and photojournalist . As a native German, most recently also a Mexican citizen, he became known for his photo coverage of the Spanish Civil War and then for his photo work with the Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera .

Life

Juan Guzmán was born as Hans Gutmann in Cologne. He belonged to a simple family and attended elementary school in his hometown. At the end of the 1920s he moved to Berlin . He became a photographer thanks to his work as a lighting technician at UFA . He traveled through France, Italy and Greece for UFA film shoots. He was a member of the KPD . The rise of Nazism made him leave Germany.

In July 1936 Gutmann traveled to Barcelona to take photographs of the People's Olympics , a sporting event organized as an anti-fascist response to the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics . On July 19, Guzmán eyed the fighting in Barcelona, ​​where the military uprising against the Republican government was put down within hours. In Madrid he shared the photo laboratory with his colleague Walter Reuter . Gutmann was awarded the rank of pioneer captain ( capitán de ingenieros ), which also gave him Spanish citizenship and changed his name to Juan Guzmán.

His work as a photographer during the Spanish Civil War was remarkable. More than 3000 pictures from his graphic work from spring 1936 to autumn 1938 are preserved in the photo archive of the Spanish press agency EFE . These are photographs taken in the Republican Zone , mainly on the fronts in Catalonia, Aragon and Madrid. The motifs of his photographic work range from objects of everyday life at the front and in the stage to excellent portraits, both celebrities such as Michail Kolzow , Ludwig Renn , Ilja Ehrenburg , el Campesino , Buenaventura Durruti or Enrique Líster, as well as anonymous people.

His most famous picture is the photograph of Marina Ginestà , a then seventeen-year-old communist, dressed in overalls and with a rifle on her shoulder, on the roof terrace of the Hotel Colon in Barcelona on July 21, 1936 , a few days after the one that took place in this city and failed uprising against the Republican government. The photo is considered one of the most iconic images of the war. Another of his best-known pictures shows a Catholic priest in Siétamo ( Huesca ) shortly before he was shot.

After the defeat of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, Guzmán fled to France, where he was imprisoned in an internment camp. But he managed to escape and save a considerable part of the photo archive. He managed to escape to Mexico in 1939 . Over the course of a quarter of a century, between 1940 and 1965, most of his photographic production came about. He has worked for major magazines and newspapers such as Life and Time and for public and private institutions such as For example, the current Department of Agriculture and Livestock, PEMEX , INAH , General Motors , the Benjamin Franklin Library and probably the Department of Hydroelectric Resources Management. Guzmán befriended Frida Kahlo, whose political orientation he shared. In the 1950s he took a photograph of Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera. Guzmán also photographed the works of other Mexican painters such as Gerardo Murillo , Jesús Reyes Ferreira and José Clemente Orozco . He died in Mexico City in 1982 , at the age of about 70.

style

Juan Guzmán's style was influenced by avant-garde trends such as German photography in the 1930s or constructivism . The Spanish Civil War played an important role in this by bringing it into contact with photojournalism . According to researcher Maricela González Cruz Manjarrez, "the hard experiences of war, Nazism and fascism shaped him in such a way that he lets his emotions out of his work in Mexico". The influences, both formal and related to his life experiences, led him to develop his own style, which was also influenced by the developmental dynamics promoted by the Mexican governments after Lázaro Cárdenas . His works of picture reporting, on the other hand, emphasize the everyday and the current. With a remarkable technical quality, Guzmán's photos are characterized by their sobriety and unadornment.

archive

Juan Guzmán's archive consists of around 170,000 photos. While Guzmán was still alive, some of the material remained in the hands of the media he had worked for. He also sold parts of his archives (for example, a series of 2000 pieces on Mexican art were sold by him to the INBA in the 1970s). He bequeathed the rest to his wife Teresa Miranda and she sold the archive to the Televisa Foundation in 2006 . There are only a few exception series, such as B. the 2,000 negative images sold to EFE in 1987; various photographic works related to Mexican art were sold to UNAM in the early 1990s ; Photos about foot and mouth disease and other rural issues to the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo .

literature

  • Jana Bach: The role of the Germans in the Spanish Civil War: a photo exhibition in the Willy Brandt House Two sides of one front . In: Berliner Zeitung . March 17, 2009 ( online [accessed June 9, 2014]).
  • Xulio García Bilbao: Marina Ginestà, icono femenino de la Guerra Civil . In: Frente de Madrid . No. 13 . GEFREMA, Grupo de Estudios del Frente de Madrid, September 2008, ISSN  1698-4765 , p. 25-29 .
  • Maricela González Cruz Manjarrez, Cecilia Gutiérrez Arriola (eds.): El instante luminoso: los artistas plásticos a través de la mirada fotográfica de Juan Guzmán . Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México 2009, ISBN 978-6-07020562-0 , p. 115 (Spanish, online [accessed June 17, 2015]).
  • Elisa Lipkau: De Fotografía y Montañismo o de una amistad sobre el hielo . In: Revista Sans Soleil. Estudios de la Imagen . No. 3, 2011/2012 , ISSN  2014-1874 , p. 195-216 ( revista-sanssoleil.com [PDF]).
  • Alfonso Morales: Juan Guzmán . Editorial RM, Colonia Cuauhtémoc, México 2014, ISBN 978-6-07829511-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gutmann, Hans 1911-1982 . In: WorldCat Identities . ( online [accessed January 7, 2014]).
  2. ↑ a b Tacoma Art Museum: Frida Kahlo: Images of an Icon . Photographer Biographies, S. 14 ( online [accessed January 7, 2014]).
  3. ↑ a b c Photographing the Lost Mural of Diego Rivera. (No longer available online.) In: In the Darkroom. Archived from the original on January 7, 2014 ; accessed on January 7, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / inthedarkroom.org
  4. ↑ a b c d Maricela González Cruz Manjarrez: Juan Guzmán. Una vision de la modernidad. German: Juan Guzmán. A view of the modern. In: Educal. Retrieved September 1, 2014 .
  5. ↑ a b c García Bilbao: Marina Ginestà, icono femenino de la Guerra Civil. 2008, p. 26.
  6. ↑ a b c Lipkau: De Fotografía y Montañismo o de una amistad sobre el hielo. 2011, p. 199.
  7. ^ García Bilbao: Marina Ginestà, icono femenino de la Guerra Civil. 2008, p. 25.
  8. ↑ There are photos from July 19: Juan Guzmán: Guardias de asalto y milicianos se aprovisionan de refrescos y otras bebidas en un establecimiento de Barcelona tras el aplastamiento de la sublevación militar . German: Police officers and militiamen, equipped with provisions and drinks, pose on a street in Barcelona after they defeated the insurgent military. Ed .: EFE . July 19, 1936 ( online [accessed January 8, 2014]).
  9. ↑ a b González Cruz Manjarrez, 2009, p. 49.
  10. ^ Philipp Lichterbeck: Photography Spanish Civil War: Prologue to the catastrophe . In: Der Tagesspiegel . March 16, 2009 ( online [accessed June 9, 2014]).
  11. ↑ Juan Guzmán: File picture dated on July 21, 1936 that shows the armed militias woman Marina Ginesta member of the Comunist Catolonian Young member (JSU in Spanish symbols) posing in the Colon's hotel terrace in Barcelona, ​​Catalonia, Spain. Marina Ginesta has died last monday 6 January 2014 at 94 years old, but her image was one of the iconic pictures of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) . Ed .: EFE. July 21, 1936 ( online [accessed January 9, 2014]).
  12. ↑ Muere en París Marina Ginestà, la miliciana que fue un icono de la Guerra Civil. German: Marina Ginestà, the militiaman who was considered an icon of the civil war, dies in Paris. In: Radio y Televisión Española. January 6, 2014, accessed January 7, 2014 .
  13. ↑ Juan Guzmán (photography): Siétamo (Huesca), agosto de 1936. - Sacerdote capturado por las fuerzas republicanas, instantes antes de ser fusilado . German: Siétamo (Huesca), August 1936. Priest captured by republican forces, shortly before his execution. Ed .: EFE. August 1936 ( online [accessed January 9, 2014]).
  14. ↑ a b González Cruz Manjarrez, 2009, p. 50.
  15. ↑ a b c d Archivo Fotográfico Manuel Toussaint. Manuel Toussaint's photo archive. (No longer available online.) In: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. Archived from the original on January 8, 2014 ; accessed on January 7, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / atenea.esteticas.unam.mx
  16. ↑ EFE: El hijo de Marina Ginestà reconoce a EFE el trato dado a la imagen de su madre . Marina Ginestà's son acknowledges EFE's treatment of his mother's image. In: eldiario.es . January 8, 2014 ( online [accessed January 9, 2014]).
personal data
SURNAME Guzman, Juan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gutmann, Hans (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Spanish-Mexican photographer and photojournalist
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1982
Place of death Mexico city