| Names: | Born: Carl Christian Heinrich Kühn
Other: Heinrich Kuehn
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| | Dates: | 1866, 25 February - 1944, 9 October | | Born: | Germany, Dresden | | Died: | Austria, Birgitz (check) | | Gender: | Male |
German pictorialist photographer and inventor.Preparing biographies
Biography provided by Focal Press
Along with Hugo Henneberg (1863–1918) and Hans Watzek (1848–1903) formed the "Trifolium" of the Vienna Kamera-Club (1896–1903). Using the gum process, they exhibited under the collective known as Kleeblat (Cloverleaf ) and were a driving force of the Austro-German secession/pictorialist movement. An amateur since 1879 and a member of the Linked Ring, Kühn made multi-layered landscapes and portraits in gum and, later, oil-pigment printing. His characteristic style featured bold, emblematic compositions on textured paper, printed in appealing brown or blue hues. His approach, to at times photograph from above eye-level, broke with the passé habits of professional portraitists and began a progressive photographic movement in Germany that reflected the concerns of similar pictorial groups that sprang up worldwide.
(Author: Robert Hirsch - Independent scholar and writer)
Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409]
(Used with permission)
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Kühn, H., 1988, Heinrich Kühn: Photographien, (Munich: Residenz) [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com | | Portraits
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Family history
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 | Heinrich Kühn: Agriculture |
|  | Heinrich Kühn: Autochromes |
|  | Heinrich Kühn: Family portraits |
|  | Heinrich Kühn: Portraits |
|  | Heinrich Kühn: Still lifes |
|  | Heinrich Kuhn: Umbrellas |
|  | Heinrich Kühn: Washerwoman on the Dunes |
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All photographs by this photographer
Heinrich Kühn
Austrian, 1866-1944
Heinrich Kühn made his first photographs in 1879, but he did not devote himself solely to photography until 1888. He studied botany and medicine, but he never practiced his vocation. Instead he went to Vienna and took portraits and joined the Vienna Camera Club. Here he met Professor Hans Watzek and Hugo Henneberg. The three men experimented with a multiple gum-bichromate process for color prints and together were known as the "Trifolium". The three founded the German-Austrian school of photography in 1912 and championed pictorialism. Kühn liked the idea of being able to manipulate the photograph and because his gum bichromate technique was so advanced, he was later able to produce his images of landscapes, portraits and genre scenes as platinum and oil-transfer prints. In 1895 he became a member of The Linked Ring and throughout the years his work was reproduced in many publications including Camera Work. Kühn's compositions were revolutionary at the time for emphasizing forms instead of details.
In the 1920s Kühn moved away from the idea of manipulating the print and instead believed it better to use a more straightforward approach to photography. He worked on various commercial assignments for magazines and later in 1927 he worked in the editorial section of Photographische Rundschau und Mitteilungen. In 1937 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Innsbruck for his contribution to the scientific and artistic aspects of photography. His work can be found in such collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C, and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1988 Residenz Verlag published a book on Kühn entitled, Heinrich Kühn Photographien.
[Contributed by Lee Gallery]
| Getty Research, Los Angeles, USA has an ULAN (Union List of Artists Names Online) entry for this photographer. This is useful for checking names and they frequently provide a brief biography. | | Go to website | Grove Art Online (www.groveart.com) has a biography of this artist.
[NOTE: This is a subscription service and you will need to pay an annual fee to access the content.] | Show on this site | Go to website | | The Cleveland Museum of Art, USA has a biography on this photographer. [Scroll down the page on this website as the biography may not be immediately visible.] | Show on this site | Go to website |
The following books are useful starting points to obtain brief biographies but they are not substitutes for the monographs on individual photographers. |
• Auer, Michele & Michel 1985 Encyclopedie Internationale Des Photographes de 1839 a Nos Jours / Photographers Encylopaedia International 1839 to the present (Hermance, Editions Camera Obscura) 2 volumes [A classic reference work for biographical information on photographers.]
• Beaton, Cecil & Buckland, Gail 1975 The Magic Eye: The Genius of Photography from 1839 to the Present Day (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown & Company) p.97 [Useful short biographies with personal asides and one or more example images.]
• Capa, Cornell (ed.) 1984 The International Center of Photography: Encyclopedia of Photography (New York, Crown Publishers, Inc. - A Pound Press Book) p.289
• Lenman, Robin (ed.) 2005 The Oxford Companion to the Photograph (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [Includes a short biography on Heinrich Kühn.]
• Weaver, Mike (ed.) 1989 The Art of Photography 1839-1989 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press) p.459 [This exhibition catalogue is for the travelling exhibition that went to Houston, Canberra and London in 1989.]
• Witkin, Lee D. and Barbara London 1979 The Photograph Collector’s Guide (London: Secker and Warburg) p.177 [Long out of print but an essential reference work - the good news is that a new edition is in preparation.]
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If there is an analysis of a single photograph or a useful self portrait I will highlight it here. |
| "I have dedicated my life to studying and determining the conditions under which it is possible to reproduce the intensity of light forces in nature through photography." |
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