Sepp Werkmeister

Sepp Werkmeister (* 29. March 1931 as Josef Werkmeister in Munich ) is a German photographer who primarily for his photographs of jazz musicians became known.

life and work

Werkmeister grew up in the Untermenzing district of Munich . He started photography right after World War II, but in addition to his artistic work he also ran a graphics workshop in Munich. He originally wanted to become a musician himself. But Sepp Werkmeister realized that this was not his main talent and started taking photos with a Rolleiflex since the 1950s . His recordings, which were often taken at the end of the concerts, are considered very personal and meaningful. He photographed almost all greats in jazz, such as B. Louis Armstrong , Ella Fitzgerald , Sweet Emma Barrett or Miles Davis . The recordings were made both at individual concerts and at major jazz festivals in Europe and the USA. His portraits of musicians have been featured on record covers, posters and in books e.g. B. published by Joachim-Ernst Behrendt . Sepp Werkmeister also photographed street scenes in New York, which became known primarily through an exhibition in the Munich City Museum in 2015 and the accompanying book New York Times . He was praised as a real street photographer for these pictures, which had not been published before the exhibition.

Exhibitions (selection)

• 2003 Exhibition in Birdland Neuburg as part of a memorial festival for Attila Zoller
• 2003 Moments of Jazz in the Franziskanermuseum Villingen-Schwenningen , together with German Hasenfratz and Fred Hugel
• 2007 Exhibition as part of the Salzburg Jazz Autumn
• 2009 Kind of Blue in Gasteig , together with Oskar Henn
• 2011 Faces of Jazz accompanying exhibition for the benefit concert Blue notes against brown tones of the Bavarian Alliance for Tolerance in the Herkulessaal
• 2015 New York 60s in the Munich City Museum

Publications

• New York Times: Sepp Werkmeister. Photographs 1965 - 1975 , Hirmer, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-7774-2430-9

Lexical entry

• Jürgen Wölfer : Jazz in Germany. The encyclopedia. All musicians and record companies from 1920 until today. Hannibal, Höfen 2008, ISBN 978-3-85445-274-4 .

Web links

• Sepp Werkmeister at Discogs (English)
• Markus A. Woelfle: Sepp Werkmeister, doyen of German jazz photographers

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alex Rühle: Swans in the light. Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 31, 2015, accessed on August 16, 2015 . 
2. ^ Ralf Dombrowski: Kind of Blue. Jazzzeitung, March 2009, accessed on August 16, 2015 . 
3. ^ New York 60s - Sepp Werkmeister. (No longer available online.) Münchner Stadtmuseum, 2015, archived from the original on August 4, 2015 ; accessed on August 16, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Julian Ignatowitsch: Jazz shouldn't be missing. Deutschlandfunk, August 5, 2015, accessed on August 16, 2015 .