34 Facts About Hans Namuth

Hans Namuth used his outgoing personality and persistence to photograph many important artistic figures at work in their studios.

Hans Namuth photographed many other painters such as Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, and Mark Rothko and architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Louis Kahn.

Hans Namuth focused on his rapport with his subjects, getting many reclusive figures such as Clyfford Still to agree to be photographed.

Besides famous art figures, Hans Namuth photographed the Mam people of Todos Santos, whose native lifestyles were being overrun by Western influences.

Hans Namuth was born March 17,1915, in Essen, Germany.

Hans Namuth cites his mother as most responsible for encouraging his interest in music and the arts.

Hans Namuth's father joined the Nazi Party in 1931 after becoming disillusioned due to an economic decline.

Hans Namuth befriended many German expatriates in Paris, including photographer Georg Reisner.

In 1935, Reisner invited Hans Namuth to assist him with his studio in Port de Pollenca, Spain, and introduced the 20-year-old Hans Namuth to photography.

Hans Namuth arrived in New York City in 1941 and planned to join the Office of Strategic Services in 1943 out of a desire "to do something about everything".

Hans Namuth returned to New York determined to raise enough money for his family while keeping photography as a hobby.

Hans Namuth realized he had been "doing something that really was not my dish", and decided to return full-time to photography.

Hans Namuth set up his kitchen as a darkroom and began doing location work for architecture magazines, as he had been interested in architecture and design.

Hans Namuth was introduced to Alexey Brodovitch, a photographer, instructor, and art director of Harper's Bazaar.

Hans Namuth began taking Brodovitch's classes at The New School of Social Research, where he learned how to develop ideas and how to engage the concepts of his images from Brodovitch.

Hans Namuth began working for Harper's Bazaar, doing fashion photography, and later children's fashion photography.

Hans Namuth was not initially interested in the work of Jackson Pollock, but was convinced by his teacher Alexey Brodovitch that Pollock was an important painter.

In July 1950, Hans Namuth approached Pollock and asked to photograph the artist working in his studio.

Not satisfied with black and white stills, Hans Namuth wanted to create a color film that managed to focus on Pollock and his painting at the same time, partially because he found more interest in Pollock's image than in his art.

Hans Namuth's solution was to have Pollock paint on a large sheet of glass as Namuth filmed from underneath the work.

Art critic Jonathan Jones suggests that by filming Pollock, Hans Namuth "broke the myth of trance" and by framing Pollock's work in the larger surrounding landscape, destroyed Pollock's view that his paintings were boundless.

Jeffrey Potter, a close friend of Pollock's, described Hans Namuth as commanding, frequently telling Pollock when to start and stop painting.

Hans Namuth took an especially large number of photos of de Kooning's Reclining Man, possibly indicating the painting's importance to Hans Namuth or de Kooning.

Hans Namuth photographed many architects including Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, and Louis Kahn.

Hans Namuth returned in 1978 to survey the damage of an earthquake and was shocked to find the native customs of the Mam threatened by influences such as alcoholism.

Hans Namuth published these black-and-white photos in his 1989 book, Los Todos Santeros, in an effort to catalog and preserve images of the town's population and customs.

Hans Namuth began to work regularly for Art News in 1979, producing 19 covers for the magazine over four years.

Hans Namuth died in 1990 in a Long Island automobile accident not far from where Pollock had similarly died in a car crash.

The full archive of Hans Namuth's work is located at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, which manages the copyright of his work.

Hans Namuth found that the rapport he developed with his subjects was integral to making them feel comfortable being photographed while working.

Hans Namuth was persistent when persuading his subjects to agree to be photographed, including sculptor Joseph Cornell, who took two years to be convinced.

Hans Namuth generally managed to put his subject at ease well enough so that they could work naturally in their environments without any artificial stiffness.

Hans Namuth's photographs included objects related to his subjects, such as paint tubes, items from around their homes, and their works of art.

Hans Namuth's photos captured his own interactions with subjects, showing how comfortable they were at the time of shooting.