Rolf Tietgens

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Rolf Tietgens (* 1911 in Hamburg ; † December 11, 1984 in New York ) was a German-American photographer living in the USA since 1939 .

life and work

Rolf Tietgens came from a Hamburg patrician family. He attended the Hermann-Lietz-Schule Haubinda and Hermann Lietz-Schule Spiekeroog and began a commercial apprenticeship after the Obersekunda, which he supplemented with an internship in the USA in 1933/34. There he saw exhibition fights of the Indians at the world exhibition A Century of Progress , got to know a chief son of the Sioux and made several trips to the Indian reservations, where he took a lot of photos. After returning to Germany, he began a new phase of life as a photographer. He made friends with the painter Eduard Bargheer and got to know the photographer Herbert List . In 1935 Tietgens moved to Berlin; There he trained at the Berlin Film School, where he also worked as a cameraman for the filming of the Olympic Games in 1936.

At the end of 1935, Alfred Schmid 's edition "Der Graue Verlag" published his first photo book, Die Regentrommel, with his Indian pictures taken two years earlier. It also contains chants of the Indians, which he transmitted. The volume is a lyrical combination of text and images and at the same time points to the destructive effects of American civilization on the lives of the Indians. In 1936 the book was banned by the National Socialists. For some of the (now illegal) Bündischen their possession was considered a distinguishing feature. Some Navajo verses were set to music in the youth movement; an illegal Rhineland alliance group called itself "Navajos".

Tietgens was able to publish some photos in magazines (for example in 1935 in Der Cross section , in 1938 in the Kodak magazine Photographik ), but saw no career opportunities in Nazi Germany and emigrated to New York in December 1938. In May 1939, 6,000 copies of his illustrated book Der Hafen with a foreword by Hans Leip were published by Ellermann Verlag in Hamburg . The external reason for the publication was the celebrations for the 750th anniversary of the Port of Hamburg . It “presents the port as an organism whose liveliness emerges in the rhythm of a working day as well as in the various close-ups of its technical organs such as ship propellers, material stores or cranes” and thus combines “documentary precision and advanced imagery”.

The time in the USA

Soon after his arrival in New York, Tietgens was able to publish pictures in various magazines. a. in Popular Photography , USCamera, and the special edition of Fortune for the 1939 New York World's Fair . In 1939 he had his own exhibition at Princeton University , in 1941 he was commissioned by the Department of Agriculture to document the consequences of the flood disaster on the Rio Grande, and in the same year the Museum of Modern Art bought two of his paintings for the permanent collection. In addition, he published essays, for example on the subject of "What is surrealism?"

Tietgens shared a studio in New York with the photographer Ruth Bernhard ; through her he met the writer Patricia Highsmith , with whom he had a special relationship until 1970. They gave him their 1964 published book The Two Faces of January ( The Two Faces of January ), he made nudes obtaining from him and formed Portrait elements of the author to surrealist works.

During the war he was interned as an "enemy alien" for a short time. In order to be able to exist financially after the war, he was forced to earn his living primarily with advertising and magazine photography. So he presented u. a. pharmaceutical products and jewelry and received several awards for particularly successful advertisements. He was unable to realize his wish to make more photo books. Tietgen's attempts to build on his earlier successes in Germany failed. He “objected to the fact that photographers, many of whom are artists, should be prescribed by an art director what images they should take and how they should be taken. [...] He didn't like it when someone gave him instructions and refused. [...] he alienated people who could have found him work. "

In 1964 he ended his career as a photographer and devoted himself exclusively to painting. Tietgens was not very successful as a painter. He had regular contact with the artist Johannes Dörflinger , who lived in New York at the end of the 1960s , but lived very isolated in the last years of his life and his health was in poor health. He died in a Manhattan clinic on December 11, 1984 .

Tietgen's works can be found in numerous collections, including the Berlinische Galerie , the Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz , the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus (Ohio)), the Berlin Museum of European Cultures , the Museum of Modern Art and the National Museum of the American Indian ( Washington, DC ).

Publications

  • The port . Ellermann, Hamburg 1939.
  • The rain drum . Photographs. Translation of the poems from English by Rolf Tietgens. The Graue Verlag, Berlin 1936.
  • The rain drum. Images and chants of the Indians . New edition with an afterword by Walter Sauer , Graue Edition in Südmarkverlag Fritsch, Heidenheim 1983, ISBN 3-88258-073-9 .
In books (selection)
  • Hans Arp : On My Way. Poetry and Essays 1912–1947 . New York 1948.
  • Andreas Feininger : The key to photography today . Düsseldorf 1958.
  • Hans A. Kluge (Ed.): Masterpieces of the photography art . Berlin, Paris 1943
  • George Nelson : Storage . New York 1954
In magazines (selection)

literature

  • Andreas Feininger: Advanced Photography. Methods and Conclusions . New York 1952.
  • Leo Fritz Gruber : Rolf Tietgens. Advertising light assemblies. Photocomposition for Advertising . In: Graphics , No. 40, 1952
  • Eckhardt Köhn: Rolf Tietgens - Poet with the camera / Poet with a camera. Photographs 1934–1964 . The gray edition, Zug 2011, ISBN 978-3-906336-57-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Graphis, Volume 8, Association of Swiss Graphic Artists, Graphis Press 1952, page 158
  2. ↑ Walter Sauer : From the fate of the rain drum . Afterword of the 2nd edition 1983
  3. ↑ Eckhardt Köhn: Rolf Tietgens - Poet with the camera / Poet with a camera. Photographs 1934–1964 , Zug 2011, pages 56 and 58
  4. ↑ In: Minicam Magazine , July 1939
  5. ↑ u. a. 1958 a prize from the American Institute for Graphic Art
  6. ↑ The gallery owner Keith de Lellis in a conversation with Eckhardt Köhn. In: Rolf Tietgens - Poet with the camera / Poet with a camera. Photographs 1934–1964 . Page 355
personal data
SURNAME Tietgens, Rolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1984
Place of death New York City