Otto Bettmann

Otto Ludwig Bettmann (* October 15, 1903 in Leipzig, † 3 May 1998 in Boca Raton, Florida) was an American archivist image and image entrepreneurs German origin.

Life

Bettmann grew up in Leipzig in a doctor's family, completed his studies in Freiburg and Leipzig with a thesis on author rights and the book trade in the 18th century and began in 1927 when Henri Hinrichsen an activity in the music publisher CF Peters. In 1928 he moved to Axel Junker publisher nor trained as a librarian and in 1930 curator of the Berlin Art Library, part of the National Museums in Berlin.

After the transfer of power to the Nazis in Germany in 1933, he was the Jew disbarment and emigrated in 1935 to the United States. He had already begun in Germany to collect prints and photographs to film it and catalog. With 25,000 negatives in his luggage he opened in New York City for an agency that licensed the use of the image trigger ( slide ) to each single use. The business based on one hand on his ability to track large numbers of images to store and catalog and identify the correct image icons for the customers, and its ability to establish commercial and social relations on a personal basis. Among his first customers were the editors of the magazines look and LIFE. The resulting in his company Bettmann Archive with over two million images he sold in 1981 to the Kraus- Thomson Organization Ltd., 1995 it went on to Corbis. He was the author of various cultural and historical writings, commentator of his own photo collections and wrote an autobiography. From the five-volume history of literature Makers and Finders: A History of the Writer in America, 1800-1915 by Van Wyck Brooks, which was published 1936-1952, he created in 1956 an abridged to one sixth version Our literary heritage and provided them with 500 illustrations. In the search for the images he made discoveries about Henry Adams, Walt Whitman and Theodore Dreiser.

His friends included Alfred Kinsey, Peter Max and Harold Stanley Marcus, president of the prestigious department store chain Neiman Marcus. He was married to Anne Gray and took over the role of father of her three children.

In 1983 he received a small supporting role as Dr. Waxman in the movie " Love Sick - The lovelorn psychiatrist ," directed by Marshall Brickman.

Autobiography

• The picture you. University Press of Florida, Gainesville FL, inter alia, 1992, ISBN 0-8130-1153-1.

Writings

• The emergence of booksellers professional ideals in Germany in the 18th century. 1927 Leipzig (Leipzig, University, phil. Dissertation, dated May 21, 1927).
• The woodcutter and book illustrator Hans Alexander Müller, Leipzig ( = Philobiblon. A magazine for book lovers. Vol. 9, No. 4, 1936, Supplement ). Reichner, Vienna et al 1936.
• State and humanity. Intellectual history of the publishing house Dr. Walther Rothschild, Berlin -Grunewald. Offered to its 25th anniversary. From 1905 to 1930. Dr. W. Rothschild Berlin 1930.
• A pictorial history of medicine. A brief, nontechnical survey of the healing arts from Aesculapius to Ehrlich, retelling with the aid of select illustrations the lives and deeds of great physicians. Thomas, Springfield, IL 1956.
• With Van Wyck Brooks: Our literary heritage. A pictorial history of the writer in America. Dutton, New York NY 1956.
• The Good Old Days - theywere Terrible! Random House, New York, NY 1974, ISBN 0-394-48689-7.
• The delights of reading. Quotes, notes & anecdots. Godine, Boston MA, 1987, ISBN 0-87923-673-6.
• With Bellamy Partridge: As we were. Family life in America from 1850 to 1900. In pictures and text. Whittlesey House, New York NY and Others 1946.
• Johann Sebastian Bach as his world knew him. Birch Lane Press, Secaucus NJ 1995 ISBN 1-55972-279-7.