HEINRICH KÜHN
Untitled (Still life with Fruit Dish, Decanter and Glasses), ca. 1900
© Estate of the Artist / Kicken Berlin
Biography
Until 1888 Heinrich Kühn (German, 1866-1944) studied medicine and natural sciences in Leipzig, Berlin, and Freiburg/ Breisgau, with micro photography as an area of particular interest. In 1894 he met Hans Watzek and Hugo Henneberg. Together the three invented the technique of color-gum bichromate printing. In 1904 Kühn became close friends with Alfred Stieglitz, who included Kühn’s work in exhibitions in 1906 and 1910 in the US at Gallery 291, among other venues. Stieglitz dedicated an issue of his journal Camera Work to Kühn’s photography in 1910. Through his painterly portraits, floral studies, and landscape photographs Kühn became the leading practitioner of art photography and Pictorialism. He developed other technical and optical innovations and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Innsbruck in 1937.
