Ellen Auerbach
Ellen Auerbach ( born May 20, 1906 in Karlsruhe as Ellen Rosenberg, † 30 July 2004 in New York City ) was a famous German - American photographer. She became internationally known under her maiden name in the 1930s. Due to their joint work with the artist Grete Stern, with whom she founded the Photo Studio ringl pit Her works were considered a major innovation in portrait and commercial photography. It influenced many European and American artists.
Life
Auerbach came from a middle-class Jewish family. Her parents got the nickname Pit. At 18, she began studying sculpture at the Baden Art School in Karlsruhe. In 1928 she joined the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. There she made experiments with a 9x12 plate camera that she got from her uncle. Since then she turned to photography.
In 1929 she moved to Berlin to attend a photographic training at Walter Peterhans. By Peter Hans, who taught at the Bauhaus in Dessau, she met Grete Stern, who became to her business partner. A former studio of Peter Hans, they built the photo studio ringl pit, named after her two pet names. From the beginning they specialized in commercial and portrait photography.
1933 won ringl pit for their promotional recording " Komol " at the Exposition Internationale de la Photographie et du Cinéma in Brussels the first prize. In the same year, initially parted ways. After the seizure of power by the National Socialists Ellen Rosenberg emigrated with Walter Auerbach to Palestine. Her parents were deported to the French internment camp de Gur, survived and later returned to Karlsruhe. Her brother escaped in 1936 to Buenos Aires.
In Tel Aviv, she opened the photo studio Ishon, which specialized in baby photography. In 1936, she left Palestine and traveled back to Grete Stern, who had emigrated to London in 1933. With no prospect of a successful career in England, she married Walter Auerbach in 1937 and moved with him to the USA, Grete Stern emigrated to Argentina.
The Auerbach lived first in Philadelphia, then moved to New York, where Ellen worked as a freelance photographer for Time magazine, among others. The New York - photos belong to Ellen Auerbach's most beautiful works. Here, she managed to capture the mixture of glamor and misery. One of her photos shows a framed drawing of the Statue of Liberty, which is sold with other junk on a street stall. For many critics this says more about the great expectations and equally great disappointment of many former exiles as a novel.
In 1945, she separated from her husband. From 1946 to 1948 she made cinematic and photographic behavior studies in children and infants. Since 1953 she worked as a lecturer at various art schools. In 1956, she finished her career as a photographer and turned to the pedagogy and psychology. From 1965 to 1984 she was a therapist education for learning- impaired children at the Educational Institute for Learning and Research in New York.
Ellen Auerbach felt her life homeless, she said: " I do not feel like a European or an American, but as utterly inadequate citizen of the world ".
Exhibitions (selection)
Discount
Ellen Auerbach's extensive estate is located in the archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.