Louis Held (photographer)

Self-portrait around 1913

Carl Heinrich Louis Held (born December 1, 1851 in Berlin , † April 17, 1927 in Weimar ) was a German photo and film pioneer who worked primarily in Weimar. He is considered to be one of the first reportage photographers in Germany and significantly shaped the traditional image of the new Weimar around 1900. Held was open to modern media and from 1910 also made documentary and reportage films. In 1912 he founded the Weimar Reform-Lichtspiele , which was then the third cinema in the city. Held worked intensively on the possibilities of color film and in the mid-1920s had a process for coloring films patented.

Life

Youth and education

Held was the son of Charlotte Marie, b. Pignol, and Adolf Ferdinand Carl Held, who owned a steel pen and envelope factory in Berlin. The family was wealthy, but the father died in 1859 and the mother the following year. Held grew up with relatives in a parsonage in Heiligensee near Berlin and, after finishing school, began an apprenticeship at the silk goods factory Pignol & Heiland in Potsdam. Held had shown an early interest in the medium of photography and made simple photographs of family members with self-made cameras from cigar boxes. He was trained as a photographer in the Schaarwächter atelier in Berlin and at the age of 25 he founded his first photo shop in Liegnitz with the painter and photographer C. Steinl. The Steinl & Held studio took portraits, landscapes and architecture and also offered enlargements and reproductions. At that time, Prince Arthur of Connaught gave him the title of “court photographer” and was allowed to use his coat of arms in advertisements.

In 1879, Held separated from his business partner Steinl. Held had already married the hat manufacturer's daughter Clara Klein in September 1878 and was now a branch manager of the hat factory Klein in Munich, but his time as a merchant was short-lived. From 1879, he worked as a photographer in Berlin for around three years before Held settled in Weimar.

Atelier in Weimar from 1882

The scandalous photo of Grand Duchess Caroline on her death bed in 1905

On April 1, 1882, Held opened a studio in Weimar at Schillerstrasse 16, which initially specialized in portraits. Among other things, Held photographed Grand Duke Carl Alexander as early as May 1882 - the beginning of a decades-long professional relationship with the Princely House. A central photographic work that was also lucrative was the portraits of the old Franz Liszt , which were sold in London by Loretz, among others.

In 1888 Held was granted citizenship in the city of Weimar. In addition, the Grand Ducal Saxon State Ministry awarded him the title of “Grand Ducal Court Photographer”, which he held until 1905. In early 1905, Held photographed the late Grand Duchess Caroline on her death bed and handed the picture over to the Berlin press. Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst was so outraged by this indiscretion that he let Held come to him, slapped him in the face and hit him with a whip. Held's successor as court photographer was Franz Vältl .

Held had already moved into a new, larger studio at Marienstraße 1 in 1886 (today part of the Bauhaus University Weimar ). He employed numerous employees and trained apprentices. In addition to portrait photography, Held now increasingly turned to outdoor shots and photo reports. In 1886 he was the first photographer allowed to take photos in the rooms of Goethe's house , which opened as a museum that year.

Water fetchers at the fountain on Wielandplatz in Weimar around 1906

He photographed numerous cultural events in Weimar, recorded technical innovations such as the first run of the Weimar tram and photographed the construction of the sewer system in Weimar. With the help of a travel camera, Held also recorded typical everyday situations such as people at work or market scenes. In his studio recordings of well-known personalities, on the other hand, he applied “the compositional principle”: he tried to characterize the sitter in the picture by his surroundings. Writers were therefore usually photographed in connection with books while the baker was recorded in the bakery. “It is certain that the idea and initiative for such photos came from Louis Held.” From 1893, Held was also a sought-after object photographer, including furniture designs by Henry van de Velde.

In November 1907 Held's first photo exhibition took place in the Karlsplatz Museum in Weimar. Recordings of well-known personalities such as Lil Dagover and Henry van de Velde were shown . Two years later, Held, who was a board member of the German Photography Association based in Weimar, was also involved in the International Photographic Exhibition in Dresden. He organized the contribution of the Thuringian photographers and presented various of his own work in the field of professional photography as well as regional and ethnology (here especially architecture shots). Held, whose children Carl († 1913) and Ella also learned the craft of photography, had meanwhile become active and well-known as a reportage photographer. He also photographed public events beyond the borders of Germany; in addition to photos from Berlin and Hamburg, there are also photos from Vienna. His photographs have appeared in daily newspapers and magazines, including Der Tag and Über Land und Meere .

The filmmaker hero from 1910

Lil Dagover, actress in Held's first film; Photo by Louis Held around 1913

Interested in the technical innovations of the time, Held turned to the new medium of film around 1900. He carried out his first experiments with the single-hole film camera "Ernemann-Kino", which came on the market in 1902. From 1910 on, documentaries and short films were made on normal film with a Pathé camera. Among other things, he recorded dance scenes in the Weimar Park with the then unknown Lil Dagover in his first film, Snake Dance. Later films were made of cultural events, which Held also captured on camera. From 1912, Held showed the films on a small scale in a hall of the Armbrustschützengesellschaft in Weimar. The interest in Held's short films was so great that he opened the Reform-Lichtspiele cinema in November 1912 . It was in the same building as his photo studio, but Held had expanded the building at Marienstraße 1 to include a cinema extension with a separate cinema entrance. In addition to his own films, he soon showed long feature films, including the silent films The Student of Prague and Battleship Potemkin . In 1919 the cinema was expanded and in 1921 Held's son Hans took over. The Reform-Lichtspiele were leased out after Held's death in 1927 and closed in 1933. Held also experimented with the medium of film in the technical field. His numerous patents also include a "process for producing cinema films in natural colors" from 1923.

Late years and death

In 1925 Held handed over his studio to his daughter Ella, who in 1918 was the first woman in Thuringia to receive the master's degree as a photographer. In the following years, Held experimented with the possibilities of color photography and carried out studies using the three-color printing process with yellow, red and blue, which also led to several publications with color photographs by the Held company - including Caspar David Friedrich , Moritz von Schwind and The Seven Ravens and the doll's house in Arnstadt - led. In 1926 Held suffered a stroke and died in Weimar in 1927.

Held's studio was run by Ella Beyer-Held until 1957 and was finally handed over to her colleague and Held's student Paul Bucher. In 1969 Eberhard Renno, who had been an apprentice at Beyer-Held and Bucher, took over the studio and Held's archive.

Act

Countess Bothmer 1904 in front of the same prospectus as ...

... dancer Saharet around 1900

Held was initially a studio photographer and worked with the brochures typical of the time. Brochures with palace-like architecture, but also landscapes, can be recognized in his photographs. He photographed unknown people, but also public figures as a result of the popular Liszt pictures. In addition to musicians, writers and dancers, this also included the ladies of the Weimar court and members of the imperial family, who were even sold on postcards. In some cases there are both prospectus photographs and recordings in the personal rooms of the person being photographed. With this approach, Held created “his own image form with a reportage character”.

Held later took documentary and practical photographs. His work prepared “the modern photo journalism of the early thirties and anticipated some of its elements.” He renounced effects and the deliberate use of light, but usually worked with normal lighting. The aim was a realistic, sharp picture of what was happening. From 1892 Held's photographs appeared in newspapers and magazines; Held's first documented photograph can be found in an article in the Berliner Abendpost . Held's color photographs are also known from the late 1880s.

Twig bearer 1903

With his reportage photographs, Held was almost without competition in Germany. Photographs of similar quality have survived only from Ottomar Anschütz ; However, Anschütz preferred more dynamic recordings than Held. Held also did not see himself as a photographic “accuser”: “His area extended [...] to poverty, not to misery”. Documentary and portrait shots partially overlap in Held's work. From 1902 onwards, Henry van de Velde's photographic work includes portraits as well as indoor and outdoor photos of the buildings he designed, furniture, fabric and pottery designs by van de Velde, as well as paintings from his collection. In this way, Held created “a kind of inventory of the Weimar oeuvre of Henry van de Velde.” Held's photographic preoccupation with Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and the Nietzsche archive in Weimar is also intense . Held's photographs decisively shaped the historical memory of the new Weimar around 1900, which is characterized by people such as Förster-Nietzsche, van de Velde and Harry Graf Kessler .

His filmic works can also be viewed as “direct continuations of his photographic work”. The traditional works, which were created from 1910 onwards, are also kept sober and documentary in style. These are reportage films on cultural, technical and historical events, but also landscapes and city shots throughout Germany. The films were sold under the trademark Weimar Film Hofphotograph Held . In an advertisement from August 1910, Held advertised that his films were available 30 hours after they were taken. At the time he had already made over 50 films. A total of 42 films by Held have been preserved, including works with the title The opening ceremony of the Weimar airfield and atmospheric images from the Spreewald . They are in the holdings of the Federal Archives' film archive .

literature

Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The Louis Held photo studio in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, OCLC 180601602 .
Technical Museum Dresden (ed.): The photographer Louis Held, Weimar (1851–1927). Pioneer of image reporting . Akzidenz-Druck, Dresden 1983, OCLC 75871316 .
Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, DNB 850587255 .
Stefan and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. In old Weimar. Photographs 1882–1919 . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-937146-58-4 .

Web links

Commons : Louis Held - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Louis Held in the catalog of the German National Library
Tour through Goethe's house. Original photos by Louis Held

Individual evidence

^ Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 8.
^ Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The photo studio Louis Held in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, p. 3.
^ Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 13.
^ Thomas Föhl: The photographer Louis Held . In: Stefan and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. In old Weimar. Photographs 1882–1919 . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2008, p. 6.
^ Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 8.
^ ^A ^b Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 20.
^ Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 22.
↑ See patent certificate in Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural and historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 27.
^ Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 30.
^ Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The photo studio Louis Held in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, p. 18.
^ Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The photo studio Louis Held in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, p. 15.
↑ Wolfgang G. Schröter: Annotation: On the importance of Louis Held in the photo history . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 36.
↑ Wolfgang G. Schröter: Annotation: On the importance of Louis Held in the photo history . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 40.
↑ Technisches Museum Dresden (ed.): The photographer Louis Held, Weimar (1851-1927). Pioneer of image reporting . Akzidenz-Druck, Dresden 1983, p. 5.
^ Thomas Föhl: The photographer Louis Held . In: Stefan and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. In old Weimar. Photographs 1882–1919 . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2008, p. 7.
^ Thomas Föhl: The photographer Louis Held . In: Stefan and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. In old Weimar. Photographs 1882–1919 . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2008, p. 8.
↑ Wolfgang G. Schröter: Annotation: On the importance of Louis Held in the photo history . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 50.
↑ See Held's advertisement, printed in: Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The Louis Held photo studio in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, p. 19.

personal data
SURNAME	Hero, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Held, Carl Heinrich Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German photo and film pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH	December 1, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin
DATE OF DEATH	April 17, 1927
Place of death	Weimar

[1] Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 8.

[2] Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The photo studio Louis Held in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, p. 3.

[3] Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 13.

[4] Thomas Föhl: The photographer Louis Held . In: Stefan and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. In old Weimar. Photographs 1882–1919 . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2008, p. 6.

[5] Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 8.

[Held_20-6] A ^b Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 20.

[7] Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 22.

[8] See patent certificate in Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural and historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 27.

[9] Renate Müller-Krumbach: Introduction: On the cultural-historical significance of Louis Held . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 30.

[10] Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The photo studio Louis Held in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, p. 18.

[11] Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The photo studio Louis Held in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, p. 15.

[12] Wolfgang G. Schröter: Annotation: On the importance of Louis Held in the photo history . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 36.

[13] Wolfgang G. Schröter: Annotation: On the importance of Louis Held in the photo history . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 40.

[14] Technisches Museum Dresden (ed.): The photographer Louis Held, Weimar (1851-1927). Pioneer of image reporting . Akzidenz-Druck, Dresden 1983, p. 5.

[15] Thomas Föhl: The photographer Louis Held . In: Stefan and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. In old Weimar. Photographs 1882–1919 . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2008, p. 7.

[16] Thomas Föhl: The photographer Louis Held . In: Stefan and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. In old Weimar. Photographs 1882–1919 . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2008, p. 8.

[17] Wolfgang G. Schröter: Annotation: On the importance of Louis Held in the photo history . In: Renate and Eberhard Renno (eds.): Louis Held. Court photographer in Weimar - reporter at the turn of the century . Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1985, p. 50.

[18] See Held's advertisement, printed in: Paul Kaiser (ed.), Stadtmuseum Weimar (ed.): The Louis Held photo studio in Weimar. One hundred years of history of a photographic workshop . Druckhaus Weimar, Weimar 1982, p. 19.