Konrad R. Müller

Konrad Rufus Müller (actually Konrad Reinhard Müller ; born March 22, 1940 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf ) is one of the most renowned German portrait photographers of the post-war period . He photographed all of the Federal Chancellors of the Federal Republic of Germany , but Adenauer , Erhard and Kiesinger only after their term of office.

Konrad R. Müller with his Rolleiflex. January 2016

life and work

Konrad R. Müller's parents came from Thuringia on his mother's side, his father was a cloth merchant. He was born in Berlin as the younger of two sons.

During the Second World War he spent the first years of his life in Ahlbeck on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom ; from 1943 to the war he was with his brother and his mother in a Thuringian village near the Hessian border sent . In 1945 the family returned to Berlin. Müller's education was based on Jesuit teaching; he was an altar boy in the Berlin Redemptorist parish of St. Alfons and founder of a youth group of the Jesuits.

1957 Konrad Müller traveled to Rome for the first time; there he met a musician who had contacts with the curia . He made sure that three years later, on the occasion of his parents' silver wedding anniversary , he succeeded in attending a Pope audience . Müller had the opportunity to take his first celebrity photo. It shows Pope John XXIII. and according to his own statement accompanies him to this day. To do this, he used his father's pre-war medium format camera , a Rolleiflex built in 1935, which he found in his parents' linen cupboard and had it repaired.

Since 1956, Müller and friends have been organizing regular private exchange meetings between Germans and French. In 1961 Konrad R. Müller got engaged in France to Josèphe Doneau, the daughter of a winemaker in western France. However, there was no marriage.

Since the early 1960s he worked in Berlin for a Cologne travel company.

After eventful school years and attending a number of private schools, Müller passed the entrance examination at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin in October 1962 , where he studied painting with Professor Hans Jaenisch . However, he broke off his studies after just four months. As an autodidact , he then began working as a photographer. In September 1965 he traveled from Berlin to Bonn , where he photographed Konrad Adenauer for the first time - two years after his chancellorship - on Bonn's Münsterplatz. Müller admired the first Chancellor of the young Federal Republic very much; he had already drawn Adenauer several times from press photos. At that time, meeting prominent politicians in Bonn was relatively uncomplicated. Adenauer traveled daily in his company car from his private home in Rhöndorf to the federal capital. Before leaving for Bonn, Müller had several opportunities to speak to Adenauer and take photos only if he was accompanied by his chauffeur .

Rainer Barzel introduced Konrad R. Müller to the former chancellor in March 1966 during the CDU federal party conference in Bonn. He met him several times before Adenauer's death - including in Cadenabbia , his vacation spot on Lake Como - and made other famous recordings.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Müller intensified his travels alongside top German politicians. He accompanied the Chancellors Erhard and Kiesinger ; then Willy Brandt on campaign trips in the special train and during private stays in the Norwegian house of his wife Rut . In 1978 and 1993 Konrad R. Müller published photo books about Willy Brandt.

Müller had his first major photo exhibition in 1972 with portraits of Chancellors Adenauer, Erhard, Kiesinger and Brandt. Numerous other solo exhibitions at home and abroad followed. However, his photographic work did not secure his livelihood; He made city tours in Berlin, gave lectures for guests of the All-German Institute and looked after young people on trips with the Franco-German Youth Office .

Further photo books were created, among others, about Presidents Anwar el Sadat and François Mitterrand . The journalistic perception of Konrad R. Müller's work as a photographer increasingly concentrated on his role as a “chancellor photographer”; a term he doesn't particularly like himself.

After phases of artistic engagement with Helmut Schmidt , Helmut Kohl was also accompanied by him for years and portrayed photographically. Two photo books with Kohl's photos were published.

A portrait of the current Chancellor Angela Merkel was created in May 2009 .

Müller thus photographed all the chancellors of the republic. His Chancellor Gallery hangs in the German Historical Museum in Berlin, in the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, in the Federal Chancellery and in the Foreign Ministry.

In addition to a large number of photos of politicians, Müller has taken pictures of authors, musicians, actors, mountaineers, hermits and others for decades. Landscape photos and reports for the magazines of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Zeit , for STERN , Profil , L'Express , and Time Magazine show further facets of his work. A completely different thematic work by Müller shows images of malformed fetuses from the Charité .

Konrad Rufus Müller is married. He lives and works in Königswinter in the Rhineland . He creates and develops his photos all his life without assistants or further support from employees. His legacy includes over 2,800 paintings that are still in his possession.

Artistic standards and technology

“A Konrad R. Müller doesn't snap. He's waiting. He says: Time is my good. " (Die Zeit, No. 37, 1998)
“Konrad Rufus Müller always wanted to be close to power and photograph the rulers in such a way that other facets can be recognized behind the official mask: loneliness, doubt, thoughtfulness. The question, "What does this office do to the people who exercise it?" (Mathias Budzinski for ttt, August 30, 2009)
Müller photographs his portraits exclusively in black and white and without additional lighting. He develops his analogue recordings himself in his own darkroom . Quote: “… there are 'no real millers' in color. I'm mediocre. " (Die Zeit, No. 37, 1998)
From 1960 to 1975, Müller only used the old Rolleiflex from 1935 and a successor model since 1975.

Awards

In 2006 Konrad R. Müller was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia .

Publications

2003: Wladimir Putin , Steidl-Verlag, Göttingen, ISBN 3-88243-942-4 .
1996: Chancellor Pictures , Gruner & Jahr
1986: Photo book about Konrad Adenauer (with texts by Golo Mann )
1978: Photo book about Willy Brandt

and about 20 other photo books

Exhibitions

2010: Konrad Rufus Müller. "DESIGNING LIGHT - Photographs from 1960 - 2010" , LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn
2009: Konrad Rufus Müller "The Chancellors - from Adenauer to Merkel" , former Postfuhramt Berlin
2000: "Terra cognita" - "The known world" , German Historical Museum Berlin
1996: Chancellor Pictures , Bundeskunsthalle Bonn

Trivia

Müller's middle name "Reinhard" was changed to "Rufus" by Austria's former Chancellor Bruno Kreisky ; this has since become common.
Müller persuaded former Chancellor Kohl to have himself photographed for the first time without his distinctive glasses.

Individual evidence

↑ Konrad R. Müller-Biography-Publications-Interview; German Historical Museum Berlin, 2000

↑ Konrad Rufus Müller - The Chancellor ( Memento of the original from December 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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. ; photographie.de, August 29, 2009. @1@ 2

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Müller, Konrad R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Müller, Konrad Rufus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH	March 22, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin-Wilmersdorf

[1] Konrad R. Müller-Biography-Publications-Interview; German Historical Museum Berlin, 2000