Dr. Otto Steinert
Solarisierte Hüttenwerk II

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Artist Dr. Otto Steinert(German, 1915–1978)German, 1915–1978

CultureGerman

Titles

Solarisierte Hüttenwerk II

Date1950

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 15 7/8 × 11 5/8 in. (40.3 × 29.6 cm)
Sheet: 15 7/8 × 11 5/8 in. (40.3 × 29.5 cm)
Mount: 17 1/8 × 12 11/16 in. (43.5 × 32.2 cm)

Credit LineGift of Manfred Heiting, The Manfred Heiting Collection

Object number2002.2358

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Manfred Heiting Collection of Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionTrained as a physician, Steinert turned to photography after World War II, and for many years he was an influential teacher in Saarbrucken and Essen, Germany, where he stressed the need to carefully reexamine the work of prewar photographers. In the early 1950s, he organized an important series of exhibitions and books devoted to what he called “subjective photography,” emphasizing the importance of using photography to explore the inner psyche and human condition rather than merely to reflect the outside world. In his own work, Steinert used high contrast and other technical manipulations to push his pictures away from conventional modes of depiction. Here, the effect of solarization—extreme overexposure while taking the photograph or exposing the negative or positive to a flash of light during development—creates the look of an otherworldly nighttime shot, recalling the similar experiments of his Bauhaus teacher László Moholy-Nagy.
ProvenanceArtist, ex-collection Prof. Erich vom Endt, Düsseldorf.

Bought by Manfred Heiting from Sander Gallery 10/11/1986.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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