Otto Steinert
Otto Steinert ( born July 12, 1915 in Saarbrücken; † 3 March 1978 in Essen) was one of the most important German photographers of the postwar period.
Life
Steinert, son of a representative, began at the age of 14 years with the photography. The oldest known recordings are from 1929. He was also interested in the technical aspects of photography and built his own camera.
In 1934, he began his medical studies in Munich, then moved to Marburg in 1935 and 1936 to Rostock. In the same year he joined the NSDAP. In 1937, he first studied in Heidelberg, then stepped but April in the Wehrmacht and was a cadet in a medical corps. He pursued his studies further in Berlin, Munich and then Berlin, where he received his doctorate at the Charité in 1939. In 1940 he took over as assistant physician at the Western campaign in France, some 1941 to 1943 first as a senior physician and then as a staff physician in the Russian campaign.
In 1943 he married Marlis Gertrude Johanna Damler. He remained until the end of the Second World War as a speaker of the army doctor in the Army General Staff in Berlin. 1945 Steinert went to Kiel and worked at the university as a junior doctor.
1947-1948 Steinert worked in the photographic and cinematographic action by Franz Altenkirch. There, in the laboratory some of his early photomontages and photograms already incurred.
The year 1947 represented a turning point in Steinert's life dar. He finished his medical career and now turned entirely to photography. In 1947 he received permission to set up a studio for artistic photography. From 1948 to 1951 Steinert was the official theater photographer in Saarbrücken. 1948 Steinert began to teach at the State Saarland School of Arts and Crafts, which he became director in 1952. He learned Josef Adolf Schmoll called know Eisenwerth, with whom he developed a working friendship. The next year he founded with Wolfgang Reisewitz, Ludwig Windstoßer, Peter Keetman, Toni Schneiders and Siegfried Lauterwasser the working group ' Free Photography ', which was called at his request photo form.
Steinert, whose photomontages show an artistic proximity to Edmund Kesting work to a separate area in the experimental portraiture with solarized negative printing, as its Pale Portrait ( 1949) created.
Steinert organized in 1951, 1954 and 1958, the exhibitions subjective photography I-III. In 1961, he photographed a series of portraits of Nobel Prize winners.
From April 1959 until his death he taught at the Folkwang School of Design in Essen. In 1973 he was also appointed by the state government of North Rhine -Westphalia professor. His students include well-known photographers and teachers as André Gelpke, Guido Mangold, Harry S. Morgan, Arno Jansen, Bernd Jansen, Heinrich Riebesehl, Dirk Reinartz, Detlef Orlopp, Erich vom Endings, Monika von Boch, Vicente del Amo, Kilian Breier and Harald Boockmann. Steinert is now considered one of the most important and influential photographers in postwar Germany.
Steinert's estate is preserved in the photographic collection of the Museum Folkwang in Essen. Since 1979, the Otto Steinert Award is conferred by the section image of the German Society for Photography DGPh.