Karl-Artur Petraschk

Karl-Artur Petraschk (born September 6, 1901 in Dresden as Johannes Karl Arthur Petraschk ; † May 7, 1976 in West Berlin ) was a German photographer , actor , set designer and graphic artist .

Live and act

Petraschk was a son of the master tailor Johann Friedrich Adolf Petraschk; his older sister was the local researcher Margarete Petraschk . As a child, he liked to paint and draw and has been taking photos since the age of 11, so Petraschk wanted to become a painter and graphic artist. At his father's request, however, he first completed an apprenticeship as a chromolithograph at the CC Meinhold & Sohn art institute in Dresden. During his apprenticeship, he attended the arts and crafts school in the evenings for two years and focused on the application of photography in graphics.

Since Petraschk took part in theater performances in hospitals in the literary circle of the arts and crafts school, he was discovered as a young actor, made his debut on November 9, 1918 in the Albert Theater (Dresden) as a replacement for a missing actor and immediately received a contract. At that time the ensemble included u. a. Heinrich George , z. B. Albert Bassermann , Alexander Moissi , Paul Wegener , Hermine Körner and Lucie Höflich at the Albert Theater.

From now on, his training and career path was two-pronged. In addition to acting engagements in Dresden, Königsberg, Halle and Saarbrücken, Petraschk also worked as a set designer after completing additional training with Leonhard Fanto in costume studies. In the summer months of 1920 and 1921, when there was no play, Petraschk also trained as a puppet carver with Ivo Puhonny in Baden-Baden and later went on tour with his own hand puppet theater, which was stolen from him in 1927 at the German theater exhibition with all its puppets and sets. In 1926/27 he studied at the Reimann School in Berlin, in 1929 for a year in Paris, only to return to Berlin in 1930.

From this time on, he mainly worked as a photographer and graphic artist for various magazines and for cultural films. With an English journalist he traveled through Europe and North Africa to publish travel reports together in the magazine Punch (he under the pseudonym PET). From 1939 to 1941 worked as an editor for the UFA newsreel. Drafted in 1941, he was wounded several times on missions in Poland and Russia. He then came to Russia, France, North Africa, the Balkans and Italy as a war correspondent (picture). As an English prisoner of war, he spent three years from 1945 in a desert camp in Egypt, where he painted a lot. After returning to Berlin, Petraschk worked here again as a photographer and graphic artist. a. at the Free University of Berlin.

Petrashk was married twice.

His photo estate from his time as a war correspondent is in the Prussian Cultural Heritage Picture Archive in Berlin.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Birth register StA Dresden II, No. 3067/1901
2. ^ Death register StA Berlin-Wilmersdorf, No. 1141/1976