Im Reiche der Chemie. Bilder aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Otto Steinert (Designer) Wilhelm Roggersdorf (Autor)

Otto Steinert (1915–1978) was one of the leading German photographers and teachers of thepost-war era. While still in high school, he begantaking photographs, using cameras he built himself. After completing his medical degree(1934–1939), he was a medical officer in the German army. To support his family (he married in 1943), he worked in a photographic laboratory in 1946–47, and it was here that he created some of his earliest photomontages and photograms. In 1947, he ended his medical career and set up a studio for artistic photography. Between 1948 and 1951, he worked as a theater photographer in Saarbrücken. In 1948, he took up teaching at the Saarländische Schule für Kunst und Handwerk (Saarland School of Applied Arts), where he also served as director after 1952. Steinert, Ludwig Windstoßer, Peter Keetman (Volkswagen), Toni Schneiders, and others founded the group fotoform in 1953. Using solarized negative prints and montage techniques, Steiner developed a highly individual style of experimental photography. In 1951, 1954, and 1958, he organized the exhibitions subjective fotografie I–III, which documented the new artistic developments in European post-war photography. In 1961–62, Steinert created photographic portraits of several Nobel prize winners and scientists. From 1959 to his death in 1978, he taught photography at the Folkwang Academy in Essen. In 1973, he was appointed professor by the government of North Rhine-Westphalia. Among his students are well-known photographers such as André Gelpke, Arno Jansen, Heinrich Riebesehl, and Kilian Breier. Steinert’s negatives and the majority of his works are held by the Photographic Collection at the Museum Folkwang, Essen. Since 1985, the German Photographic Association has awarded the Otto Steinert Prize.