Heinrich Kühn

It is only now, after visiting your country house in Birgitz rear Innsbruck, that I have begun to understand you and your work. It was there in your house, as your grandson showed nie through your cotlected works, that my fascination developed into true artistic appraisal. Maybe it was the scale Of the rooms1 the interior decoration and the furniture, tater evidenced in your photographs, that helped to enhance my perception and increase my desire to investigate and discover some Unwrittem~and perhaps even unknown~facts about you the photographer who played such an important rote at the turn of the century together with your photographic colleagues, both on the Continent and in the American school directed by your friend Alfred Stiegliti.

My first encounter with your work was through CAMERA WORK, prepared and edited at 291, Fifth Avenue, by the photosecessionists and Alfred Stieglitz. Although the choice of images was not large, I was fascinated by your pictures.

Speaking of CAMERA WORK, I noticed a marvellous portrait while looking through your prints at Birgitz which no-one in your family could identify. I recognized it immediately: it was the photograph you took of Edward Steichen sitting on a chair in your Studio, and it was at about this time that he came to Europe to acquire the work of August Rodiq, whom he had previously befriended, for an exhibition in Gallery 291. Strangely enough, it was just one year later, on November 18th 1907, that the members of the photo-secession showed autochrome colour transparencies by Stieglitz, Steichen, Eugene and White. This was perhaps the first important colour exhibition in America.

It you only knew how wany photographers aspire to be artists to this very day; perhaps this will always be so throughout the cenfury. You yourself raised the medium of photography to a high level in your time, both technically and aesthetically. I was amazed when searching through your autochrcmes to see how you had reached a 'netn reality'. Perhaps this was due largely to the directness of the medium, as opposed to the various steps towards the final image in the carbon and gum prints. Although the style is similar in many ways, the composition and arrangement seems to have changed in your autochiome work. This may have been due to the colour itself and the rich nuances of light and colour in the darker areas. I sense the intensity of your experimentation, and I begin to realize the great difference between the pioneer and his followers. Contintied on page 37

HEINRICH KUEHN

New York-1944

when he was here that he hasn? seen An nan for years. In England, the incapable Morkiner has become the successor of Horsey Hinkon. A fine company of buslness men! I can't bear to think about these p00- pie because I know *hat awful things they are doing. Travelling salesmen of 'art photography'.

I will see that you get numbers 48, 49 and 50 of CAMERA WORK. These are tl)e last ones. You write that you have not got numbers 35 and 43. No, my issue was 35-36 and Steichen's 42-43.

At last I fee/like a human being again, and ihave started to photograph again. You have no idea how old and worn out I was. Pain and tiredness and sleeplessness-worry and trout los and irrita tons.

New York is like a madhouse. flare, there is peace and simplicity. In New York everyone is crazy about money and supertlciali~an endless chasean unbelievable headless- ness which is almost magnificent, but which means nothing to me. Here there are green fields and trees and a blue sky The whole Summer without rain, and without too much tear-very good far rheumatism, but not so good for the vegetation.

Once more, many thanks for the magarifles. And don't be annoyed about what I said about Marthies. I have nothing against him, and I know what good friends you are and I am glad about it I will write again soon. What a pity you don 't road English. German is hard for me. and I could write a lot in English which I cannot formulate in German. A thousand greetings from your

old Thend Alfred

The century had turned, and it is now evident that the first decade of the twentieth century was a high pant of visual art. The new modern masters were painters who saw in an abstract fashion and created new image~because photograph now prov.'ded the realism that had previously been the task of painting. Seen from this angle, we can say that both painting and photography were striding in new directions inherent in the mediums themselves.

Your search for reality and use of pigments, bromoil and gum to preserv'e and enhance your negative images rather than tainting them became more and more evident to me as I perused your pictures. The photograph of your mother by the door of the country house in Bir9itr, or the children studying in the room with the open doorway as a natural frame bear witness lo the straight-forwardness of your approach and the intensity with which you captured selected moments.

The pose in which you photographed Steichen on his European visit in 1907 was later used by him in his famous portrayal of Greta Garbo"'. And indeed, you and your work proved to be a great help to many photographers in ihe years that followed, although th~s fact received little recogniton. There is a great deaf of your phot~ graphic work that has not been reproduced and shown since it was first produced and exhibited, although many of your knowi'Portrait Eduard Steichen

edgeable technical articles were published in a number of the world's photographic journals.

There is a considerable amount of correspondence with Adolf Herz, the first editor of this magazine, between 1922 and the beginning of World War II You wrote many technical articles during this time, but you showed only little of your artistic work. Was this because it was difficult to reproduce your auto- chromes with the reproduction techniques of the time? I know that most of the photographic journals of the time did not have the facilities for reproducing colour, and I can only surmise that due to the lack of good colour printing systems, both photo- graphic and for reproduction purposes, much of the work done around 1912 has been seen by very few people. This may mean that now, in 1977, colour photographs are being unearthed in old forgotten drawers and cupboards where our fathers and grandfathers stored the colour pictures of the time. I can only hope that, despite the unpredictability of the colour material, some wek preserved images will be discovered-as is the case with your work. It is not only the problem of light, but also the sandwiching ol the diapositives and glass mounts with thin tape which sometimes leads to a deposit of moisture inbetween. But enough of this subject: you are well aware of the technical liabilities and problems which are still with us todav in the photographic field.

I should like to mention that the problem of colour preservation is still acute today, and although much research is being carried out to solve the problem, there is a regrettable lack of collaboration in the investigalions. This, however, does not deter young photographers from working with colour, and they even use methods which hold out no hope of permanence. Nevertheless, they have defined colour in a new way, and compared to the colour work of your time we could call it 'Straight Colour', 'Natural Colour' or 'Colour Reality'. For some time, colour became playful and synthetic through the use of filtration and monochro

matic renderings to enhance a minimum of colour. In fact, it became so exaggerated that the real meaning of the essence of colour was lost. However, I think we are back again on the right path now, using the materials at our disposal to capture both colour and a moment of time simultaneously.

As you once spoke of David Octavius Hill's remarkable aesthetic use of the new medium, I speak to you now as an important leader at the turn of the century, a pioneer who led us away from the imitative and back to the innate values ot the photographic medium. There were many roads open, and you adhered to the one path that was vital to you and intrinsic in your nature, a path which you. your colleagues and those to come have followed to great advantage.

Sincerely,

Allan Porter