Konrad Helbig

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Konrad Helbig (born June 17, 1917 in Leipzig ; † February 17, 1986 in Mainz ) was a German photographer , art historian and archaeologist .

life and work

Konrad Helbig was a soldier in the Soviet Union during World War II . He returned from Soviet captivity in 1947. Immediately afterwards, at the age of thirty, he began studying art history and archeology. He was particularly interested in the Mediterranean cultures. These cultural landscapes never let go of him. In the following decades he traveled to the Mediterranean countless times. Helbig worked both as a photographer and as an author of magazine articles - with publications e.g. B. in the travel magazine Merian or in the Atlantis - as well as photo books, such as the 1956 volume about Sicily. The abundance and also the quality of his photographic work is great. Helbig photographed mostly in black and white. A major exception to this are color slide positives , which were intended for his slide presentations. Helbig was a rousing narrator whose lectures were always very well attended. Helbig distinguished himself as a travel photographer:

The photos have nothing of the smoothness and boredom that usually make picture books of this kind so unpleasant, and the text written by Konrad Helbig finally establishes the distance. Photos of selected beauty and sophistication not only trace the landscape and panorama, but also go into detail; the island's population has a fair interest ... as well. The historical, social and geographical are merged in pictures and text into an informative and brilliant unit.

After his death in Mainz in 1986, nude photographs of young men were discovered in his estate . The photographs, some of which were taken in the 1950s, are seen in the tradition of Wilhelm von Gloeden and Wilhelm Plüschow , but can also be seen as anticipating a photographic perspective of e.g. B. Bruce Weber or Herb Ritts apply. In contrast to Bruce Weber, who prepared his photos in great detail, Helbig turned out to be a photographer who heavily involved his models. He was more of a service provider who understood the character of capturing the personality of his models. Accordingly, the preface to Homo Sum says:

The pictures of the naked young men never seem suggestive and Helbig never positions himself as a voyeur. On the contrary, he knows how to make your personality and your self-confidence visible. In the narcissistic game, men who are very well aware of their beauty step in front of the camera and say: I am human. Homo sum.

The Photographic Work Helbig is in the archives of photographers in the German photo library Dresden (160,000 recordings, of which 60,000 color slides), the Bildarchiv Foto Marburg Philipps University Marburg (23,800 recordings, 11,000 to Greece and 6,000 to Italy) and in the Hamburg State Archives within of the holdings of the " German Society for Photography " archived. His files are in the FC Gundlach Hamburg Foundation . Konrad Helbig's works include a. on display in the DKM museum .

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 2008: Marins, Légionnaires, Ouvriers: Raymond Voinquel et Konrad Helbig. Au Bonheur Du Jour Gallery, Paris .
  • 2018: Konrad Helbig. On the Mediterranean. Photographic explorations. LVR State Museum Bonn

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ from a review of Archipelagus in: Die Zeit , June 14, 1963, No. 24.
personal data
SURNAME Helbig, Konrad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer, art historian and archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 1986
Place of death Mainz