Paul Wolff

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Paul Wolff (born February 19, 1887 in Mulhouse , German Empire ; † April 10, 1951 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German photographer and a pioneer in the field of 35mm photography . In recognition of his photographic performance as a pioneer of Leica photography , he received in 1936 the two hundred thousandth Leica by the company Ernst Leitz .

Life

Even as a twelve-year-old he was enthusiastic about taking photos with a plate camera . But after graduating from school, he first studied medicine, completed his habilitation in Strasbourg in 1914 , became an assistant doctor and in 1914 was called up for military service. After the First World War , he was expelled from Strasbourg, which now belonged to France again, in 1919. He moved to Frankfurt am Main . There he first worked in the copier of a financially weak film company. With a film camera he had bought himself, he began to work for the film company, but soon went into business for himself.

He produced films and photographed the settlements for the Neues Frankfurt project . Paul Wolff switched from moving images back to photography. He worked with a plate camera measuring 18 × 24 cm and had plenty of jobs. In 1926 he won his first Leica at the International Photo Exhibition in Frankfurt : It was to have a lasting impact on his future life. First, after he had finished his work with the large-format camera with the Leica, he took pictures of small, nice scenes on markets, in alleys and along the way. He improved his technique and soon he caused a sensation in the magazines with his vivid 35mm photos. The dynamic style of the unleashed 35mm camera was born. In 1927 he was looking for the ideal employee and found him in his business partner Alfred Tritschler . The two then founded the company Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler . Paul Wolff's breakthrough as a photographer came in 1933. The Leitz company ordered from him for the exhibition The Camera 100 enlargements in the format 40 x 60 cm, which then went around the world as a traveling exhibition. The first edition of My Experiences with the Leica was published in 1934 . Translated into four languages, this book became one of the standard works of photography. In the same year Paul Wolff made a trip to what was then the Saar region . On this occasion, gripping shots of people, everyday life, landscapes and industrial plants such as the Völklinger Hütte were taken . In 1936 Paul Wolff and his colleague Alfred Tritschler photographed the Summer Olympic Games and then published the book What I saw at the 1936 Olympic Games, which was published in four languages.

Wolff not only photographed with the Leica, but also with large format cameras, preferably in the 9 × 12 cm format with a wide-angle Schneider Angulon 120 mm lens for outdoor photos .

In 1940 Paul Wolff published the first German industrial illustrated book in color. Im Kraftfeld von Rüsselsheim published an edition of 55,000 copies; in the same year he published the first edition of My experiences with the Leica in color . In 1944 his house in Frankfurt was destroyed by a bomb attack and large parts of his plate image archive were destroyed; only the outsourced small picture archive remained. The Frankfurt Institute for Urban History preserves an extensive collection of photographs taken between 1927 and 1943 of Frankfurt's old town , which went under in 1944 .

After his death, his co-managing director Alfred Tritschler continued the "Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler" picture archive. In 1963 it was taken over by Alfred Tritschler's nephew, Robert Sommer in Offenburg, who successfully continued it and passed it on to his son Thomas Sommer in 1979. The picture archive now covers the period from 1927 to 1970 and has a negative inventory of around 500,000 images.

Wolff's grave is located in the Frankfurt main cemetery , Gewann II GG 17a.

Paul Wolff was married to Helene Dörr (1887-1959) for the first time. Son Klaus Heinrich Wolff was born on May 1, 1916 in Strasbourg († 1988). Wolff's second son Stephan Wolff (* 1943) emerged from a second marriage with Annette Beiger (1906-2002).

He had a warm friendship with the designer of the Leica, Oscar Barnack . He was also personally connected to the head of the Leitz works, Ernst Leitz .

plant

His 1929 with Karl Robert Langewiesche in Königstein i. Ts. Published book "From zoological gardens" in the series of Blue Books quickly achieved several high editions. With Wolff's project "Botanischer Lichtbildstudien" (botanical photography studies), which he immediately proposed to the publisher Langewiesche in 1929 and which appeared in 1931 under the title "Forms of Life", he deliberately dealt with the protagonists of the "New Seeing" such as Karl Bloßfeldt and Ernst Fuhrmann and Albert Renger-Patzsch . In his book Sun over Lake and Beach , he mainly photographed people and thus bequeathed us a beautiful contemporary document about fashion in the 1940s. It is interesting that the captions are printed in three languages.

Exhibitions

  • Photo exhibition in Germany: "My experiences with the Leica" with -207- black and white enlargements, with an exhibition brochure, July 1933.
  • Traveling photo exhibition in the USA: Washington, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburg, Boston and New York, 1935.
  • Photo exhibition in the Frankfurt City Archives: "Frankfurt as it was", 1980.
  • Photo exhibition in the Leica gallery in Wetzlar, "Memorial exhibition on the 30th anniversary of Dr. Paul Wolff's death", 1980.
  • Traveling exhibition in Switzerland: Lichtensteig, Bern and Geneva, "Master recordings with the Leica from the years 1927-1947", 1982-1983.
  • Photo exhibition in the Frankfurt City Archives: "Frankfurt am Main - Taken with the Leica", for the 100th birthday of Dr. Paul Wolff, 1987.
  • Traveling exhibition of ADAM OPEL AG: Dr. Paul Wolff - pioneer of 35 mm photography - photographs 1927 - 1939, Rüsselsheim, Kaiserslautern, Stuttgart a. Bochum, 1989-1990.
  • Exhibition in the gallery of the Frankfurter Sparkasse, Frankfurt: "Dr. Paul Wolff - Pioneer of the Leica in Frankfurt am Main (1925-1950) - Cityscape - Zeitbild - People, 1989.
  • Photo exhibition in Japan: For the 1 year anniversary of the reunification of Germany - "Germany's history in pictures", Tokyo a. Osaka, 1991.
  • Exhibition by Flughafen AG, Frankfurt am Main: "Dr. Paul Wolff - Frankfurt Airport and Airship Port in the 1930s", 1991.
  • Photo exhibition in the Museum Ober-Ramstadt: "Advertising photos for Röhr", 1992.
  • Exhibition in the Leica gallery in Solms: "Enjoy the automobile of the 1930s or the car with lust and love", 1993.
  • Photo exhibition in the Institute for Urban History Frankfurt / M. on the occasion of the destruction of Frankfurt's old town in March 1944, 1994.
  • Exhibition in the Historical Museum in Frankfurt / M .: "Paul Wolff (1887-1951) - Photographs and Reports from 1925-1950", 1995.
  • Exhibition at the Elisabeth Schneider Foundation, Freiburg, "On the photographs of Dr. Paul Wolff 1928 - 1945", 1999.
  • Exhibition at the Elisabeth Schneider Foundation, Freiburg, "On the photographs of dr Paul Wolff - Olympic Games 1936", 2000.
  • Leica Gallery, New York, 2001, "Fifty Years After His Death"
  • Suermondt Ludwig Museum , Aachen 2003.
  • Photo exhibition at GALLERIES in Offenburg, "Dr. Paul Wolff - The new time is coming", 2003.
  • World cultural heritage Völklinger Hütte, Völklingen / Saar 2004.
  • Argus fotokunst gallery, Berlin 2004.
  • Brennet Textile Museum / Wehr Südbaden, permanent exhibition photo cycle Brennet AG 1941.
  • Exhibition in the Ernst Leitz Museum, Wetzlar: "Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler: Light and Shadow - Photographs 1920 to 1950", 2019.
  • Contemporary photography, Museum Folkwang in Essen , 1929.

Publications

  • Old Strasbourg. 30 reproductions based on photos by Paul Wolff. Rasch, Strasbourg 1912.
  • Old Strasbourg. 36 reproductions based on photos by Paul Wolff. New episode. Rasch, Strasbourg 1914.
  • Old Frankfurt. Forty pictures based on photos by Paul Wolff. Englert & Schlosser, Frankfurt 1923.
  • From zoological gardens. Photograph studies . Langewiesche, Königstein i. Ts. 1929. Reprints until 1965.
  • Forms of life. Botanical photography studies. Preliminary remarks and notes from Martin Möbius . Langewiesche, Königstein i. Ts. 1931. Reprints 1933, 1935, 1940 and 1957 (the latter revised by Friedrich Markgraf); 2002 Reprint of the first edition, ed. v. the Albertina in Vienna with an introductory essay by Rainer Stamm and pp. 137–160 appendix on the history of the edition together with documentation of all reviews, documentation of removed, added and planned recordings, ISBN 978-3-7845-2480-1 .
  • My experience with the Leica. A historical cross-section from almost 10 years of Leica photography. Bechhold / owner Breidenstein, Frankfurt am Main 1934.
  • Go to the land of the Franks ... A trip to the Main . Pictures by Paul Wolff. Verhagen & Klasing, 1934.
  • Sun over lake and beach. Bechhold, Frankfurt am Main 1936.
  • Ski mate Toni. Winter trips around Garmisch-Partenkirchen. 1936.
  • What I saw at the 1936 Olympics. 1936.
  • with Alfred Tritschler (photos), Carl Wiskott (text): Greece experienced in the car. Bruckmann, Munich 1936.
  • with Alfred Tritschler (photos), Paul Georg Ehrhardt (text): Work! People and Reich, Berlin 1937.
  • Large screen or small screen? Results of a photo trip through Franconia to the Danube. Bechhold / owner Breidenstein, Frankfurt am Main 1938.
  • Small trip to Italy. A picture by Paul Wolff. Specht, Berlin 1938.
  • In the force field of Rüsselsheim. With 80 color photos by Paul Wolff. Knorr and Hirth, Munich 1940.
  • with Alfred Tritschler (photos), Alfons Paquet (text): The Rhine. Vision and reality. Düsseldorf 1940.
  • My experiences ... colorful. Breidenstein, Frankfurt am Main 1942.
  • with Alfred Tritschler (photos), Adolf Reitz (text): Advance into the invisible. Ulm 1948.
  • with Alfred Tritschler (photos), Eberhard Beckmann (text): Germany. A series of photos of the US-Zone, its towns and villages, their past and present. Frankfurt am Main 1948. 2nd edition 1949.
  • with Alfred Tritschler (photos), Erich Walch (text): Beauty on the way. Heering, Seebruck am Chiemsee 1949.
  • with Alfred Tritschler, Hans Saebens a. a. (Photos), Eberhard Beckmann, Harald Busch (texts): Germany: South, West, North. An illustrated book of German landscapes, their cities, villages, etc. People. Frankfurt am Main 1950.

literature

  • Wolfgang Klötzer (Ed.): Frankfurt in photographs by Paul Wolff 1927–1943 , Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich, 1991, ISBN 978-3-88034-533-1 .
  • Kristina Lemke: Dr. Paul Wolff. A career as a photographer under National Socialism . In: Rundbrief Fotografie 24.2 (2017), pp. 8–19.
  • Werner Schollenberger: Automobiles in the 1930s. Recordings from the famous Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-88255-898-2 .
  • Hans-Michael Koetzle (Ed.): Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler: Light and Shadow - Photographs 1920 to 1950 , Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, 2019, ISBN 978-3-86828-880-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Leica Lists actuphoto ( memento of the original from October 4, 2013 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. (PDF; 4.7 MB), accessed on July 7, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.actuphoto.com
  2. ↑ a b Heinrich Stöckler: Farewell to Dr. Paul Wolff , in: Leica Photography, No. 3 May / June 1951, Umschau Verlag Frankfurt / M., Page 98.
  3. ↑ Paul Wolff: large screen or small screen? Results of a photo trip through Franconia to the Danube. Bechhold / owner Breidenstein, Frankfurt am Main 1938.
  4. ^ FAZ.net - Paul Wolff
  5. ↑ See Paul Wolff: Dear Herr Dr. Leitz !, in: Speeches and congratulations on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Dr. hc Ernst Leitz on March 1, 1941, page 62 f., complete production: Hauserpresse, Hans Schaefer, Frankfurt a. M., n.d.
  6. ↑ Forms of Life, Königstein i. Ts. 2002, pp. 2-7 and 141.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Mulhouse
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1951
Place of death Frankfurt am Main