Arts | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Arts’ category

Stuttgart’s Gerda Taro

Travel day 76, Euro day 75.

I’m in Stuttgart for a few days, and I rediscover photographer Gerda Taro was born in the city. I’d already read some history of photography, including the Spanish Civil War and Gerda Taro as the first woman to photograph and publish images about open conflict. I’ve gone looking for some traces in the city of her birth, as a quick and spontaneous mini-project in the midst of 90 consecutive days in Europe.

Memorial, near Olgaeck

Near the bus and tram stop Olgaeck is Gerda Taro Plaza, in memory of the young woman photographer who was born “Gerta Pohorylle” in Stuttgart and who once lived with her family in the area. At the plaza is a 2014 memorial dedicated to Taro; the text on all nine panels is entirely in German.

*Named for photographer Gerda Taro (1910-1937), the plaza was unveiled by the city in 2008, and redesigned in 2014 with the installation of the memorial.*

*“O”. Gerda Taro, a pioneer in war photography.*

*“R”*. *The 1920s: Jazz, Theater, and the Stuttgart Kickers.*

*“A”*. *Leipzig: distributing leaflets against Hitler.*

*“T”. Exile in Paris: meeting André Friedmann, and the creation of Gerda Taro and Robert Capa. There is no Capa without Taro.*

*“A”. The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.*

*“D”. Barricades, armed women, equitable distribution of land.*

*“R”. The camera as witness: misery and terror from bombs.*

*“E”. Getting up close, for the world at large.*

“G”. The first woman war-photographer killed on location. Documenting Spain’s civil war with her camera, Gerda Taro was accidentally run over by a tank and died from her injuries in a hospital near Madrid on 26 July 1937. She was buried in a marked grave in Paris’ Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.

*Republican militia women training on the beach outside Barcelona, Spain: photo by Gerda Taro, August 1936. Provided by Ur Cameras on Flickr via Creative Commons.*

Family home

Not far from Gerda-Taro-Plaza, I found the Pohorylle family’s former home, based on this poignant essay. I didn’t see any Gedenktafel (memorial plaque) or any Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) in the pavement, at or in front of either building 170 or 170A. In 1929, when Gerta was 19 years old, the Pohorylle family moved from Stuttgart to Leipzig.

*Obstructed view of the former Pohorylle family house (in light orange), as seen from passage off Cottastrasse.*

*Gate to path access for building address Alexanderstrasse 170A.*

*Former Pohorylle family house, at Alexanderstrasse 170A.*

Taro, short bio

Born Gerta Pohorylle, 1910 in Stuttgart, Germany; died 1937 in El Escorial, Spain.

“… Studied in Leipzig starting in 1929. Emigrated to Paris in 1933. In 1935 began working with the photographer André Friedmann, later known as Robert Capa. In 1935-1936 worked for the Alliance Photo Agency. Shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in the summer of 1936, she and Capa went to Spain; other photography assignments in Spain followed in early 1937. She was fatally wounded at the Brunete front in July 1937 and was the first female war correspondent killed in action.”

Source: “Women War Photographers: from Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus” (Munich: Prestel, 2019), p. 218.

I made all photos above with an iPhone15 on 22 Jul 2024. I received no support from an external organization. This post composed with Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

New West actor Raymond Burr

Fraser Cemetery

As a boy whose early memories include the family’s small black-and-white television from the 1970s, I remember the tv show “Ironside.” Canadian-born Raymond Burr played the titular character of Robert Ironside, special consultant for the San Francisco police department. Years later in the mid- to late-1980s, Burr returned as Perry Mason, the lead from the 1960s weekly tv-drama revived as a popular series of made-for-tv movies. He died in 1993, buried with members of his family in Fraser Cemetery, at home in New Westminster, B.C.

*Burr family grave at lower-centre – 9 Apr 2024 (iP15).*

*Raymond Burr (lower-right), with sister Geraldine, father William, and mother Minerva – 9 Apr 2024 (iP15).*

In 1858, the British established New Westminster as first- and capital-city of the new colony of British Columbia. Fraser Cemetery accepted its first burials in 1869.

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 9 April 2024. Composed entirely within Jetpack for iOS, this post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-sjD.

My Berlin: Minkowski space in Heerstrasse cemetery

Waldfriedhof Heerstrasse (Heerstrasse forest cemetery)

Is this a small park with plenty of trees, hilly terrain, and a small lake? Or is this simply a forest cemetery, a final resting spot for many prominent Berliners?

As part of an ongoing search for gravesites for physicists and mathematicians in Germany, I visited Berlin’s Friedhof Heerstrasse, near the city’s Olympic Stadium. Within the cemetery is Sausuhlensee lake, which settled into a former glacial gully, around which much of the cemetery came into being in 1924. Named after the early 20th-century Heerstrasse estate district whose residents were to be buried here, the cemetery stretches out over an area of almost 15 hectares (37 acres).

I found the grave for physicist Hermann Minkowski, but among the buried there are other “Promis” (prominent).

Friedhof Heerstrasse, Westend, Berlin, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Forested park, forest cemetery.

The calm waters of Sausuhlensee lake on an autumn afternoon.

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Vienna: Lichtzeichen testament to Jewish presence

Above/featured: Lichtzeichen number 10 (Stumperschul) in the city’s 6th district. Photo, 28 May 2022.

From a distance, the light seems suspended in mid-air.

Closing the distance widens my realization: it’s an illuminated sculpture that has a curved warped shape on top. That’s also when understanding narrows into sharp focus when I stand directly underneath: the shape “straightens” out, revealing itself as a Star of David.

Lichtzeichen Wien (LZ) consists of 26 structures in the Vienna region, marking former locations of synagogues, schools, temples, and prayer rooms destroyed by the Nazis in the pogrom of November 1938. During the night of 9–10 November 1938, the Nazi regime organized and carried out a systematic attack against the Jewish population in Germany and Austria. The rampage in Vienna continued for several days; most of the city’s synagogues, temples, and prayer-halls were destroyed.

Launched by the Jewish Museum Vienna and Austrian artist Brigitte Kowanz, an urban memorial project by joint collaboration of the Jewish Museum Vienna and the University of Applied Arts Vienna consists of identical columns, designed by artist Lukas Kaufmann. The commemorative project is called “Ot” (אות), which means “symbol” in Hebrew. Each “light column” sculpture stands about 5-metres high with a star of David, and includes the name of the former Jewish structure and an accompanying QR-code. Official unveiling of the memorial project occurred in 2018 on the 80th anniversary of the 1938 pogrom.

I visited and photographed all 26 Lichtzeichen locations in Vienna over a period of three summers in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

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Schottentor, Votivkirche, 9. Bezirk, Alsergrund, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Österreich, fotoeins.com

Vienna: 9 spots in the 9th district

Above/featured: Votivkirche (Votive church) from Schottentor. Photo, 20 May 2023.

Two visits: two months spread over two years.
A thousand kilometres of walking.
Hundreds of historical spots and locations tracked, spotted, and photographed.

It makes sense that out of Vienna’s 23 city districts, I’ll frequent some more than others. The 1st district, or the Innere Stadt, is unavoidable, because that’s where most visitors to the city will congregate. The 2nd (Leopoldstadt) and the 6th (Mariahilf) are districts where I had separate month-long stays. But it’s the 9th district (Alsergrund) into which I wandered through countless times, including tracking my way to the 18th and 19th districts.

Out of many interesting little spots in Alsergrund, I’ve highlighted nine examples from a historical “mélange” of architecture, Jewish culture, medicine, music, and physics. If you’re wondering about the Votivkirche (Votive Church) in the image above, I’ll have more about the church in future posts about Ringstrasse (Ring Road) architecture as well as the architectural works by Heinrich Ferstel.

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