Otti Zacharias

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Ottilie "Otti" Zacharias (* 1906 in Wilstrup near Haderslev , North Schleswig , † August 26, 1981 in Kiel ) was a German portrait photographer . She became known in the 1950s and 1960s for black and white portraits of musicians, actors and politicians and received numerous national and international awards for her work, including a gold medal from the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1967 for a series of early color photographs .

life and work

Studio stamp imprint

Ottilie Zacharias was born in Wilstrup near Haderslev in the province of Schleswig-Holstein in 1906 . After the referendum in Schleswig and the annexation of the region to Denmark, the family moved to Sarau in the Segeberg district in 1921 and later to Gleschendorf in the Ostholstein district . Her career choice was significantly influenced by her uncle Ernst Sauermann , director of the Thaulow Museum in Kiel . Otti Zacharias began an apprenticeship as a photographer in Munich in 1930 at the Bavarian State College for Photography , founded by Georg Heinrich Emmerich in 1900 . In September 1931 she passed her assistant examination there with the rating “commendable”. Even during her training, she concentrated on portrait photography. After completing his training, Otti Zacharias returned to Kiel. In 1932 she received her first major commission: the photography of the ensemble members of the Kiel City Theater for the theater's programs .

Otti Zacharias opened her first own photo studio on April 24, 1934 in Kiel in the house of her uncle Ernst Sauermann's family at Reventlouallee 12. In the following year, she passed her master's examination in Kiel . For the Ellerbeck local history museum , the portrait series of the character heads from the old Ellerbeck population was created during this time . The photo series of the Ellerbeker Fischerbilder was used for official advertising and propaganda publications of the Gau capital Kiel , such as on the occasion of the Olympic sailing competitions in 1936 .

In 1944 the building with the studio at Reventlouallee 12 was destroyed by bombs, and all of your photo and negative archives were destroyed. Otti Zacharias moved back to her family's house in Gleschendorf and started her new career from here, initially as a press photographer. In 1950, she opened a new studio in Kiel at Alter Markt 3 (Ernst-Nehve-Haus) and again preferred to focus on portrait photography. Otti Zacharias photographed scientists, politicians, craftsmen at work, took cityscapes, still lifes, architecture and fashion photos and portrayed important artists from the fields of drama, music and dance such as Wilhelm Backhaus , Elly Ney , Henryk Szeryng , Clifford Curzon , Géza Anda , Ralph Kirkpatrick and Marcel Marceau . Her photographs were among others to equip numerous local history books and architectural picture books, for campaign posters of the CDU and FDP as well as album covers of LPs of Decca , Sony Classical and Deutsche Grammophon used.

In the 1950s, Otti Zacharias was repeatedly honored by the Central Association of German Professional Photographers in professional competitions and exhibitions in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt . In May 1958 she received the Bavarian State Prize and a gold medal for her photo portrait studies exhibited at the International Crafts Fair in Munich, including those of the conductor Gerd Albrecht and those of the theater actor and dancer Harald Kreutzberg .

CDU state election poster from 1962, Kai-Uwe von Hassel .

In addition to her photographic work, Otti Zacharias trained numerous apprentices over many years. Many of her trainees received prizes and honors for excellent examination results in the 1950s and 1960s. In September 1953 she was appointed chairman of the journeyman's examination committee of the Lübeck Chamber of Crafts .

In the late 1960s, Otti Zacharias also experimented with color photography . With four color studies, she took part in a traveling exhibition of the Photography in the fine Arts association and received a gold medal from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1967 . During this time, Otti Zacharias stayed longer in America, where she made a series of color portraits of mostly dark-skinned people. In the same year she received the award and permission from the Bild working group in the Central Association of German Professional Photographers to mark her photos with the ABCV sign (Working group image in the Central Association).

Even at retirement age, Otti Zacharias still worked in apprenticeship training: In 1972, at the age of 66, she was appointed deputy assessor of the master craftsman's examination committee in Schleswig-Holstein .

Otti Zacharias remained unmarried and childless throughout her life. She died at the age of 75 on August 26, 1981 in Kiel. Since 2000, her artistic estate of around 90,000 negatives and around 350 art photographs has been in the Kiel city archive.

As a representative of existentialism , she mainly worked in black and white ; many of her portraits are characterized by striking light-dark contrasts, which she created by using low-key lighting as a preferred stylistic device. By doing without structured backgrounds, she succeeded in an artistic reduction to the essential facial features.

In 2009 the Kiel City Museum showed a retrospective of over 100 photos of her artistic work. Her photographs are now in the collections of national and international museums and foundations, including the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Theatermuseum Wien , the Royal Library of Stockholm and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation .

literature

  • Jan S. Kunstreich : The photographer Otti Zacharias, Art in Schleswig Holstein, yearbook of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum Schleswig, Gottorp Castle . Ed .: Ernst Schlee . 1st edition. Christian Wolff Verlag, 1960.
  • Obituary Otti Zacharias, Photo-Presse , 43, 1981, p. 15

Works by Otti Zacharias (selection)

Web links

Commons : Otti Zacharias  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ SLUB Dresden: Munich Photo School 1900-2000. (No longer available online.) In: www.arthistoricum.net. Archived from the original on December 14, 2016 ; accessed on December 14, 2016 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arthistoricum.net
  2. ↑ a b c d kiel.de: Exhibition archive: Otti Zacharias. Kiel photographer (1906-1981) , accessed on December 11, 2016
  3. ↑ Zenta Mauriņa, with photos by Otti Zacharias: Encounter with Elly Ney. A thank you. Maximilian Dietrich, Memmingen 1960.
  4. ↑ Sony Classics: Henryk Szeryng - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sonatas & Partitas For Solo Violin. In: Discogs. Retrieved December 14, 2016 .
  5. ^ Decca: Clifford Curzon - Liszt *, A Liszt Recital. In: Discogs. Retrieved December 14, 2016 .
  6. ↑ a b shz.de (from February 7, 2009): More than 100 photos by Otti Zacharias , accessed on December 11, 2016
  7. ↑ a b Stadtgalerie Kiel: 08.02. - 22.03. 2009 Otti Zacharias. In: www.germangalleries.com. Retrieved December 14, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Kiel City Archive - Photo archive: Ottilie Zacharias (1906-1981) picture bequest , accessed on December 11, 2016
  9. ^ Otti Zacharias and Georg Schödl : Theater Museum Vienna: Harald Kreutzberg. In: kulturpool.at. Retrieved December 18, 2016 .
  10. ^ Harald Kreutzberg - Culture Pool. In: kulturpool.at. Theatermuseum Wien, accessed on December 14, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Zacharias, Otti
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zacharias, Ottilie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German portrait photographer
DATE OF BIRTH 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilstrup near Haderslev , North Schleswig
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1981
Place of death Kiel