"MITTELALTER FOTOGRAFIE”
It never rains, but it pours. Not only are we being treated right now to new books and exhibitions on Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler, but out of the blue comes a strikingly beautiful art book with images of medieval sculptures that Alfred Tritschler photographed in 1948. From the book’s introduction (translation by the reviewer): “Among the numerous photographic prints held by the Museum Schnütgen in Cologne, known for its medieval works of art, comes a surprise find that was ignored for decades: a compilation of vintage prints, taken by Alfred Tritschler… These photographs, taken in Cologne, with their very personal view of the sculptures from the museum’s collection, represent a special subset of this photographer’s work never previously taken into consideration. In the museum’s object documentation, these old black- and-white prints had a largely invisible existence, partly stuck onto cardboard and sorted into portfolios… Ninety of this Leica photographer’s 35mm prints have survived there and have now been viewed, digitized, and scanned. The book collects these largely unpublished photos…”
Most of the images in the book derive from Tritschler’s scanned vintage prints. Thomas Sommer of the Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler Historisches Bildarchiv located all of the relevant negatives (for reference), and scans of some related negatives are also used as supplementary images in the book. The images are quite beautifully printed. The Archiv’s documentation for the negatives does not specify the camera equipment Tritschler used, but it seems clear to both Mr. Sommer and to the reviewer that most of the images were taken with a 135mm f/4.5 Hektor lens. The Hektor is known even today for its superlative performance at close distances with a mirror reflex housing, and of course the 135mm focal length renders head shots (which basically describes many of these images) quite naturally. Tritschler, in his end note to his near-contemporaneous book of plant close-ups “Schönheit am Wege”, cites use of the 135mm focal length on a Leitz Mirror Reflex Housing (Leitz PLOOT) and employing various extension rings as needed, along with the 90mm and 200mm focal lengths used occasionally. The reviewer is reasonably convinced that he used the same equipment for these museum images. The lighting used here in the museum shots is often quite dramatic portrait lighting, and Tritschler proves masterful at making these old sculptures come alive for us. Perhaps one should have expected from the sympathetic way Tritschler portrayed workers in factories, close-in at their workstations, that he had such skills, but still, for someone like the reviewer quite familiar with Wolff and Tritschler’s published work, discovering this book is truly like finding a secret room in one’s house with treasures in it.
Pietà, 3 views; Circle of the Master of Osnabrück, circa 1525, oak, colored
In 1948, Germans from all walks of life had to improvise for their livelihood. The “Wirtschaftswunder Deutschland” was likely stimulated that year with the currency reforms, but did not really get going until the 1950’s. Wolff and Tritschler were living and operating in quite reduced circumstances at the time. From the introduction: “Wolff had left Frankfurt in 1944…[and by 1945] found a home for himself, the Wolff & Tritschler company, and his 35mm negatives (which had previously been safely stockpiled there), in Braunfels on the Lahn, where he occasionally lived in the princely castle; Tritschler followed him to Braunfels in 1946. From there they resumed their photo business; however, they could not build on their commercial success of the 1930s. Tritschler briefly described the difficult entrepreneurial situation in an illustrated book immediately after the war [in “Schönheit am Wege”]: ‘In the damp, ancient prison cells of a small town on the river Lahn, we had a makeshift darkroom and tried to control the operation through those confused times: work tools, chemicals, papers and films were scarce everywhere and were only to be found with difficulty and with great sacrifice’”. One assumes that barter and even subterfuge were employed to obtain supplies.
It seems a reasonable conjecture that Tritschler intended a somewhat similar book to “Schönheit am Wege” for these medieval sculptures. Otherwise, we do not know exactly why these pictures were taken. He took three sets of images under different titles, so it was a significant undertaking. It would be the reviewer’s guess that such activity was done on spec, with the simple intent to make ends meet on the cheap; neither plants nor sculptures require paying models or using much in the way of expensive external or ancillary equipment. Why the images remained unpublished and essentially hidden away is also not clear, as Tritschler ran the Wolff & Tritschler business until he retired in 1963, and lived until 1970. Perhaps soon enough after taking these pictures he had the return of business contracts and no need to self-market the idea of an art book.
St. Jerome as Cardinal, Cologne, 2 views; around 1480-1500, linden wood, colored
The book’s text is entirely in German. Dr. Iris Metje, author of the introduction, is an art historian and since 2011 has been a research associate on numerous publications and exhibition projects on medieval art for the Museum Schnütgen. Her other research focus is the history of photography. Her introduction covers Tritschler’s history, something about the collections from which he chose objects, and comments on Tritschler’s artistic vision as exemplified in how he posed and lit the sculptures, and what depth of field he chose to photograph them. While an interesting text, monolingual English readers should not be deterred here, as it is the images themselves which will speak to us.
There is also an appendix with the data and the provenance of each image.
The reviewer wants to thank Dennis Janzen from the Greven Verlag in Cologne for the images.
Alfred Tritschler Mittelalter Fotografie 136 Pages with 102 Photographs, 24 × 28 cm ISBN 978-3-7743-0925-8, Greven Velag Cologne 25,00