Eugen Mittelmann und das moderne Handwerk der Fotografie – Porträts im Edeldruck, werbende Fotocollagen und Passbilder für Auswandernde

In the organizer's words:

Lecture by author, artist and photographer Prof. Dr. Rolf Sachsse

In Leipzig during the 1920s and 1930s, Abram and Eugen Mittelmann embodied the classic dilemma of a creative craft in a modern medium: on the one hand, striving for contemporary pictorial forms with aesthetic aspirations, on the other hand, fulfilling the factual and economic constraints of a strictly regulated profession. For Abram's son Eugen Mittelmann in particular, the contradiction between creating a new way of seeing and traditional stereotypes of the studio portrait is not easy to bear. The situation worsened from 1933, when the Jewish company was harassed in every respect, until Eugen Mittelmann and his family emigrated.

The lecture will trace the developments at Mittelmann's father and son, but also in the immediate and wider environment of the photography scene of those years, using individual examples down to the last detail. Particular attention will also be paid to the harassment, persecution and exile of a Jewish craft business.

Registration stadtmuseum@leipzig.de or T. 0341.9651340