Robert Haas (artist)

Robert Samuel Haas ( April 16, 1898 in Vienna , Austria - December 5, 1997 in Valhalla , New York , United States ) was an Austrian calligrapher , typographer , photojournalist , art collector, and graphic artist .

Life

Haas studied at the Technical University of Vienna from 1918 to 1924 and, at the same time, took courses in economics and art history at the university . Parallel to his technical studies he took courses at the Vienna School of Applied Arts with the well-known type artist Rudolf von Larisch , and later, from 1920, he followed this to the Academy of Fine Arts . Between 1929 and 1931 he was a student of the famous Viennese studio photographer Trude Fleischmann .

Together with the painter Carry Hauser , he founded the Officina Vindobonensis in 1925 , a graphic studio and hand press. As a trained graphic artist, he designed posters and catalogs for catalogs for artists' associations such as the Vienna Secession or the Künstlerhaus from 1926 to 1935 . He participated in exhibitions at home and abroad, received graphic assignments a. a. for the Franz Joseph exhibition in 1935 and designed a large photo montage for the Austrian pavilion at the Paris World Exhibition in 1937 . In the 1930s he devoted himself increasingly to photojournalism. His photos have appeared in numerous magazines and illustrated magazines, in Austria mainly in Der Sonntag and in the stage . From the mid-1930s he worked with numerous international photo agencies. His photos and reports were printed in France, Switzerland, Great Britain and the USA. As a photographer, he mainly used his camera outdoors. He documented the pleasures of the Viennese in the Bohemian Prater and the Wurstelprater and created a report about the children of unemployed people in the Viennese district of Simmering , which also attracted attention outside the country's borders. From 1936 his photos were also printed in the USA, France, Switzerland and Great Britain. In addition to his reports, formalistic exercises, grids made of cobblestones, the shadow net of a garbage can, the track bed of a funicular were created. In the summer of 1937 a reportage assignment took him to Styria. He photographed the Donawitz steelworks on behalf of the Alpine Montangesellschaft .

Haas was the official photographer of the Salzburg Festival in 1936 and 1937 , where he portrayed numerous artists, a. a. Arturo Toscanini, Werner Krauss, Ezio Pinza, Max Reinhardt or Bruno Walter. He also photographed many prominent festival guests, such as Marlene Dietrich , Sacha Guitry or Grace Moore. Haas documented the luxury cars in front of the glamorous Hotel de l'Europe as well as an actor in front of his dressing table. In addition, he captured everyday life in and around Salzburg in numerous snapshots.

With the invasion of German troops and the annexation of Austria to the Third Reich in March 1938, his career came to an abrupt end. On September 30, 1938 he managed to leave Vienna for England. After staying in London for six months, he went to the USA in April 1939 . He wanted to continue his work as a reportage photographer in New York , but did not succeed. As a German citizen, he was forbidden to take photos in public after the beginning of the Second World War. He was able to obtain special permits for portrait photography and for advertising. In 1939 and 1940 he taught photography, printmaking and calligraphy at various American art colleges, including the famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina and Goddard College in Vermont. On several trips he documented the American way of life . Haas captured the everyday life, the landscape and the buildings of the new country in impressive views. In his second home, New York, excellent examples of urban photography were created. In terms of photography, Haas oriented himself towards the new trends such as straight photography or the aesthetics of the Farm Security Administration's photo campaigns . In addition to big cities and travel pictures, he also took numerous portraits in the 1940s and 1950s. Among other things, he photographed Albert Einstein and Oskar Kokoschka . In 1941 he returned to the field of graphics and printing and founded the Ram Press hand press printing company in New York City , which worked for a number of well-known museums and galleries. a. for the Guggenheim Museum , the Frick Collection and the Museum of Modern Art . At the same time, numerous photo works were created, most of which remained unpublished. Until 1983 he taught hand press printing and calligraphy at various schools and universities . a. at the renowned Cooper Union Art School in New York.

estate

• During his research on the photographer Trude Fleischmann, the photo historian Anton Holzer discovered the extensive photographic legacy of Robert Haas. The Wien Museum acquired the complete photo estate in autumn 2015 and processed it scientifically.
• From November 24, 2016 to February 26, 2017, the exhibition “Robert Haas. The view of two worlds ”.

Fonts

• Anton Holzer, Frauke Kreutler (eds.): Robert Haas. The view of two worlds, with texts by Anton Holzer, Frauke Kreutler and Ursula Storch, exhibition catalog Wien Museum, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7757-4182-8
• Anton Holzer, Frauke Kreutler (eds.): Robert Haas. Framing Two Worlds , texts by Anton Holzer, Frauke Kreutler, Ursula Storch, exhibition catalog Wien Museum, Hatje Cantz publisher, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7757-4199-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ NJ. Friends of the Fairleigh Dickinson Library. Introduction by Herman Zapf; Text by Paul Madison: Robert Haas Printing Calligraphy Photography . 1984.
2. ^ Albertina (Collections Online): Haas, Robert, biographical outline , accessed November 24, 2016.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} ORF (Vienna): Reports by a forgotten photographer , November 24, 2016, accessed November 24, 2016.
4. ↑ Wien Museum: Robert Haas - The View of Two Worlds. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 24, 2016 ; Retrieved April 24, 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.