Wilhelm Simon Guttmann (15 November

1891 Events January * January 1 ** A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence. **Germany takes formal possession of its new African territories. * January 4 – The Earl of Zetland issues a ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

–13 January

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

) was a German writer, political commentator, and managing director of picture agencies and who inspired significant photographers including

Robert Capa Robert Capa (; born Endre Ernő Friedmann, ; October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist. He is considered by some to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.Kershaw, Al ...

Maria Eisner Maria Eisner (Maria Eisner Lehfeldt; February 8, 1909, in Milan, Italy – March 8, 1991, in New York, New York) was an Italian-American photographer, photo editor and photo agent. She was one of the founders of Magnum Photos, and the first h ...

, Felix Mann and Kurt Hutton.

Germany

Simon Guttmann was active together with

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

in the German Youth Movement, ''Die deutsche Jugendbewegung''. He was friends with the painters of the German Expressionists of

Die Brücke Die Brücke (The Bridge), also known as Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke, was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. The founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-R ...

, especially with

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist Painting, painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expr ...

, was the founder of the literary magazine '' Neue Weltbühne'' and wrote some literary articles in early Expressionist magazines. From 1909 to 1912 Guttmann participated in Der Neue Club ('The New Club') and the resulting Neopathetic Cabaret of the Berlin

Expressionists Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

scene, which was directed by

Kurt Hiller Kurt Hiller (17 August 1885, Berlin – 1 October 1972, Hamburg) was a German essayist, lawyer, and expressionist poet. He was also a political (namely pacifist) journalist. Biography Hiller came from a middle-class Jewish background. A com ...

and founded in 1909 near the

Hackescher Markt ("Hacke's Market") is a square in the central Mitte locality of Berlin, Germany, situated at the eastern end of Oranienburger Strasse. It is an important transport hub and a starting point for the city's nightlife. Overview Originally a mars ...

. Guttmann accelerated a connection between the Brücke artists and this circle. In 1912, together with David Baumgardt, Erwin Loewenson,

Jakob van Hoddis Jakob van Hoddis (16 May 1887 – May/June 1942) was the pen name of the Jewish German expressionist poet Hans Davidsohn, of which "Van Hoddis" is an anagram. His most famous poem ''Weltende'' (''End of the world''), published on 11 January 1 ...

and Robert Jentzsch, he was one of the editors of the posthumous poems of

Georg Heym Georg Theodor Franz Artur Heym (30 October 1887 – 16 January 1912) was a German writer. He is particularly known for his poetry, representative of early Expressionism. Biography Heym was born in Hirschberg, Lower Silesia, in 1887 to H ...

, published in 1910 and introduced in ''The New Club''. Together with

Franz Jung Franz Josef Johannes Konrad Jung (26 November 1888 – 21 January 1963) was a writer, economist and political activist in Germany. He also wrote under the names Franz Larsz and Frank Ryberg. He grew up in Neisse (now Nysa) and was a childhood frie ...

he published the appeal "Save

Otto Gross Otto Hans Adolf Gross (; 17 March 1877 – 13 February 1920) was an Austrian psychoanalyst. A maverick early disciple of Sigmund Freud, he later became an anarchist and joined the utopian Ascona community. His father Hans Gross was a judge tur ...

!" in the Munich magazine ''Revolution'' in 1913 and took part in the campaign to free him.

Switzerland

During the First World War he emigrated to Switzerland and belonged to the

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

Dadaist Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

circle in the Grand Café Odeon; together with

Wieland Herzfelde Wieland Herzfelde ( Herzfeld; 11 April 1896 – 23 November 1988) was a German publisher and writer. He is particularly known for his links with German avant-garde art and Marxist thought, and was the brother of the photo montage artist John H ...

he was involved with the Spartacists, before in 1920 he became one of the founders of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany. In 1923 he lived for two weeks with Ossip and Lilja Brik in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and also met

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist mov ...

there, after which he brought the first

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

films to Berlin. In 1927 he was co-director of Curt Oertel on the film sequences for the premiere of

Ernst Toller Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German author, playwright, left-wing politician and revolutionary, known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, ...

's play ''Hoppla, wir leben! ''produced by

Erwin Piscator Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator (17 December 1893 – 30 March 1966) was a German theatre director and Theatrical producer, producer. Along with Bertolt Brecht, he was the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio- ...

at the Berlin Theatre and starring

Alexander Granach Alexander Granach (April 18, 1890 – March 14, 1945) was a German-Austrian actor in the 1920s and 1930s who emigrated to the United States in 1938. Life and career Granach was born Schaje Granoch in Werbowitz (Wierzbowce/Werbiwci) ( Austr ...

in the lead role.

Photo agencies

In 1928 Guttmann founded the press photo agency Dephot together with Alfred Marx as financier, where

, founder of Alliance Photo and Magnum agencies, and Kurt Hutton, one of the founding staff of the groundbreaking pictorial weekly news magazine ''

Picture Post ''Picture Post'' was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,000,000 copies a week after only two months. ...

,'' received their training. In 1933 Guttmann emigrated to France and later to London, where he ran his own press photo agency Report. In 1935, after emigrating to Paris, he sent his disciple Endre Friedmann (aka Robert Capa) who later became famous, to Spain to produce reportage on the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. In the early 1950s,

Inge Morath Ingeborg Hermine "Inge" Morath (; 27 May 1923 – 30 January 2002) was an Austrian photographer. In 1953, she joined the Magnum Photos Agency, founded by top photographers in Paris, and became a full photographer with the agency in 1955. Morat ...

completed her final internship with him in London before she started working for Magnum in 1953. From 1961 to 1969 Guttmann worked with

Romano Cagnoni Romano Cagnoni (Pietrasanta, Italy, 9 November 1935 – 30 January 2018) was an Italian photographer who spent most of his professional life based in London. Biography Cagnoni used to photograph sculptures in the small town of Pietrasanta, Tu ...

on photo reports for major British daily newspapers and magazines. He set up Report and IFL in Oxford Street with Helen Warby featuring many photographers including Alan Vines, Romano Cagnoni, Patrick Eagar, Carlos Augusto, Stefano Cagnoni, Chris Davies, Mary Elgin, Bente Fasmer, Peter Harrap, John Harris, Tessa Howland, Alex Low, Rick Matthews, Nick Oakes, Angela Phillips, Mark Rusher, John Smith, Laurie Sparham, Derek Speirs, John Sturrock and Andrew Wiard amongst others, until his death in January 1990 aged 99 years. The Report IFL Archive is now represented online by Report digital: https://www.reportdigital.co.uk/home

References

External links

From the bourgeois youth movement to left-wing communism – the path of Simon Guttmann and his friends
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guttmann, Simon 1891 births 1990 deaths Austrian writers German communists Photo agencies German editors * https://www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/news/papers-belonging-pioneer-modern-photojournalism-simon-guttman-available-view-first-time