Knud Knudsen (photographer)

Knud Knudsen, photography around 1900

Knud Knudsen (born January 3, 1832 in Odda , Norway ; died May 21, 1915 in Bergen , Norway) was one of the most important Scandinavian photography pioneers , who shaped the pictorial conception of the landscapes of Northern Europe - especially Norway. In his homeland he was first known as a pomologist . His subsequent activity as a photographer from the mid-1860s onwards resulted in an artistic reputation for himself that extended beyond his country of origin .

In photography in the 19th century, Knudsen turned primarily to landscape photography , often combined with motifs in which he documented the traditional customs and traditions of the local population. One of his specialties was stereoscopy , by means of which he created an effect of spatial vision in some of his images .

Live and act

Father with children in Odda, Knudsen photography from his place of origin, around 1880

Bryggen in Bergen , Knudsen photograph ca.1866

The twin waterfall Låtefossen , Knudsen photography around 1900

Knud Knudsen was the son of a grocer. The family farmed in Hardanger , a region in the southwest of the Norwegian province Hordaland and an agricultural operation.

In addition to a commercial apprenticeship in the provincial capital of Bergen , he first completed a basket maker training before he became interested in fruit growing .

During visits to his parents' farm on the Hardangerfjord , Knudsen founded one of the first tree nurseries in Norway where he grew foreign fruit varieties and was the first to grow the Hardanger apple, one of the most famous Norwegian apple varieties today . At a fruit exhibition in Bergen in 1860, Knudsen received the prize for the greatest variety of varieties.

Financed by a foreign scholarship from the Norwegian state, he traveled to Reutlingen in 1862 at the foot of the Swabian Alb in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg . At the local Pomological Institute , one of the most important fruit growing institutes in Europe at the time, he continued his education for six months.

In order to document his journey through the states of the German Confederation , Knudsen had acquired photographic equipment that he used in his free time to capture images of the city and landscape - sometimes using a stereoscopic method. The resulting recordings are now among the oldest historical photographs of the cities Knudsen visited, especially with regard to the stereoscopic representation.

After returning from his advanced training in pomology in Reutlingen, Knudsen increasingly neglected fruit growing and turned to photography, especially landscape photography. He opened a photo studio in Bergen in 1864. The reasons for the termination of his pomological career have not yet been clarified. A lack of success is assumed due to two bad harvest years in a row.

At the same time, Knudsen was also very successful as a photographer. He traveled all over the country and was the first to systematically capture the landscapes of Norway in particular in photographs.

Aftermath, reception

Knud Knudsen's photographic estate, most of which is archived in the University Library in Bergen , contains around 16,000 images, many of which are available as stereoscopic images.

In 1997, the city of Reutlingen, where Knudsen's photographic career basically began, brought key Reutlingen city photographs on loan to the photography pioneer’s early place of activity and presented the corresponding works, which are among the oldest photographic evidence of the historical cityscape, in a special exhibition at the Reutlinger Heimatmuseum .

See also

• List of pomologists

literature

• Robert Meyer (ed.): Den glemte tradisjonen - Oppkomst og utvikling av en nasjonal landskapsfotografi i Norge Fremd til 1914 ; Oslo kunstsforenings skrifter, Norwegian edition from 1989 on landscape photography in Norway until 1914
• Heimatmuseum Reutlingen (ed.): Journey to Reutlingen 1862. Stereoscopic images by the Norwegian photographer Knud Knudsen ; Catalog for the exhibition of the same name, 100 pages, 63 illustrations, 1997 ( data record in the directory of the German National Library )

Web links

Commons : Knud Knudsen (photographer)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry to Knud Knudsen in Baedeker-Allianz Travel Guide Norway on google.books
• Knudsen introduction with some photographs of his works from the Bergen University Library (Norwegian)
• Special page about Knud Knudsen with further links on a subpage of the University Library Bergen (Norwegian)
• Interview with Werner Ströbele, Head of the City of Reutlingen's Department of Culture and Curator of the Reutlingen Local History Museum, in the context of the Knudsen special exhibition "Journey to Reutlingen 1862"

Single receipts

1. ^ "Journey to Reutlingen 1862 - stereoscopic images by the Norwegian photographer Knud Knudsen" ; Special exhibition of the Reutlingen local history museum from December 13, 1997 to August 3, 1998