ALBERT RENGER-PATZSCH
Das Bäumchen / The Sapling, 1929
© Ann und Jürgen Wilde, Zülpich / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Biography
Albert Renger-Patzsch (German, 1897-1966) took up photography in 1909 under the tutelage of his father. He dropped out of his chemistry studies and in 1920 took over the picture archive of the Folkwang publishers. In 1922 he and Ernst Fuhrmann started the book series Die Welt der Pflanze. Renger-Patzsch opened his own studio for architecture, industrial, and commercial photography in Bad Harzburg, Germany in 1927. His 1928 book Die Welt ist schön (The World is Beautiful) established him as the leading photographer of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement. He also published the books Die Pflanze als Lebewesen (1930, with Fuhrmann); Eisen und Stahl (1931); and Gestein (1966). Renger-Patzsch moved to Essen in 1929 to teach at the Folkwangschule für Gestaltung. After his archive was destroyed to a large extent by Allied bombing in 1944, he moved with his family to Wamel near Soest.
