“He died too young, too early. If he had lived another 20
years, he would now be more recognized.”
Peter Stein is talking
about his father, Fred, whose documentary photographs captured poignant
moments in the street
life of two of the world’s great cities, and whose portraits sought
to reveal the personalities of a number of the artists, writers and
politicians of his time.
Peter Stein is a cinematographer
who has been shooting feature films and TV movies for almost 20 years.
“My career
required me to be away from home for three or four months at a time
for a film,” he says, “but now I want to be around as my children
grow up. So I’ve cut back, and I’m trying to work closer to home
on documentaries and commercials.”
His new schedule has
also given him the perfect opportunity to do something he’s wanted
to do for a long time: bring
his father’s photography to a wider audience. “I’ve always known
that his work was as good as that of many others who were very well-known,
and now I want to try to bring him some of the recognition and notice
he never received.”
Peter first made an effort to do that some 18 years ago when he put
together portfolios of his father’s photographs and hired a representative to
show the work. But at that time Peter’s career was just taking off, and he couldn’t
follow up on the notice his father’s work was getting. “We got good responses
from museum directors who wanted the collection, and there were many letters
of support, but I couldn’t pursue it.”
Now he can. “The portfolio had been prepared,” Peter Stein says,
“and I had a catalog printed and made some limited-edition prints available for
sale.” The catalog text and biographical information about Fred Stein was written
by Dawn Freer, Peter’s wife.
Today photographs by
Fred Stein are in the collections of the National Museum of Art,
the International Center of Photography
and the National Portrait Gallery, as well as other museums and private
and corporate collections around the world. Ultimately, Peter Stein
hopes that a book of his father’s images will be published.
“My father was a free
spirit about the business,” Peter says. “He shot what he wanted to
shoot and thought about sales
later. His joy was meeting people, taking pictures and talking politics.
It was an age when you could do that, but even so, he wasn’t financially
successful. My mother supported the family.”
“When I was a kid he taught me composition and lighting. I used to
go around with him to museums, and he’d explain composition – how to look at
things through a frame.”
Fred Stein was born
in 1909 in Dresden, Germany, the son of a rabbi and a religion teacher.
As a teen-ager he became
active in socialist and anti-Nazi movements. He went to Leipzig University,
obtained a law degree in an impressively short time, but was denied
admission to the German bar by the Nazi government for “racial and
political reasons.”
His political activities
then became more committed and more dangerous. He joined the Socialist
Worker’s Party, a non-Communist
splinter group of the Social Democrats. He lectured and rode around
on his bike distributing anti-Nazi literature.
Dawn Freer writes of
those years: “Under the deepening shadow of fascism, Germany was
becoming an increasingly hostile environment.
In August, 1933, when Fred Stein married Liselotte (Lilo) Salzburg,
the daughter of an eminent Jewish physician, guards at the Justice
of Peace greeted them with ‘Heil Hitler’ salutes. Fred Stein’s closest
friends had left to live in Paris and urged them to come. When they
were secretly warned of danger after the arrest of close friends,
Fred and Lilo fled to Paris under the pretext of taking a honeymoon
trip.”
In Paris they were
in the center of a circle of expatriate socialists, thinkers and
artists. “In this fertile milieu,”
Dawn Freer writes, “Stein began taking photographs professionally.
He was a pioneer of the small, handheld camera, and with the Leica
which he and his wife had purchased as a joint wedding present, he
made studio portraits and went into the streets to photograph scenes
of life in Paris.”
Among his early portraits
were images of friends such as Hannah Arendt, Willy Brandt and Arthur
Koestler (all of whom
he photographed over a period of 30 years). The circle also included
Philippe Halsman, with whom Fred Stein hung his first show in 1937,
and Robert Capa, whose girlfriend, Gerta Taro, lived as a boarder
with the Steins.
In 1939 war between
Germany and France was declared and Fred Stein was put in an internment
camp for enemy aliens near
Paris. “He managed to escape,” Dawn Freer writes, “and after a hazardous
journey through the countryside, met his wife and baby girl in Marseilles,
where they obtained visas through the efforts of the International
Rescue Committee. On May 7, 1941, the three boarded the S S. Winnipeg, one
of the last boats to leave France. They carried only the Leica and
some negatives that represented his record of the intellectual life
of Paris in the 1930s. The bulk of the pictures considered politically
dangerous, such as those taken at political rallies, were sent to
an archive in Holland for safekeeping. The archive was later bombed,
and the pictures destroyed.
“In New York, Stein
continued his photography while his wife worked to support them,
first in factories, then as
an educator.
“Fred Stein read extensively
and made acquaintances with writers, artists, scientists, politicians,
and philosophers.
This wide circle of contacts enabled him to meet the people he wished
to photograph. When he did not have a personal introduction, he would
photograph his subjects, documentary style, at public appearances.
He also photographed many people on commission. Notable portraits
from this period include those of Albert Einstein, Carl Sandburg,
Thomas Mann and Frank Lloyd Wright.
“Now a mature artist
with experience and perspective, Stein was also an astute social
observer, walking through the streets
of New York, documenting life from Fifth Avenue to Harlem. He worked
unobtrusively and quickly, presenting his subject as sole content,
never as interesting or incidental material for photographic interpretation.
He preferred natural lighting and avoided elaborate setups as well
as dramatic effects. He did not retouch or manipulate his prints.
“From the first, Stein
worked with a 35mm Leica – in fact, the first model ever produced
– while most other portrait
photographers worked with large studio cameras. Later he added a
Rolleiflex.”
Although portraits
were his main income-generating work, and he photographed many people
on commission, he generally
worked without assignment, prizing the freedom of shooting people
and scenes that interested him. He would then offer his work to publishers
and photo editors of magazines, newspapers and books.
“His work is the document
of an exiled European,” Dawn Freer writes, “an intellectually and
politically committed man
driven out of Germany by the Nazis. Chance made him the outsider,
the observer; from this vantage point came his approach and his vision.”
Fred Stein died in
1967 at the age of 58. His portraits and reportage had appeared in
newspapers, magazines and
books throughout the world. He had also lectured and had held a number
of exhibitions. During his lifetime his work received favorable critical
attention, but many today feel that the scope and power of his photography
were never fully recognized.
In an article about his work in the September 26, 1954, issue
of The New York Times, Fred Stein was quoted.
“The
report of a likeness and the revelation of character are the two
principal goals of the portrait photographer.
Both purposes must be achieved in the successful portrait since full
recognition of a person is not in the exterior identity alone, but
is elaborated and made convincing by some visible element of individuality.
The photographer is therefore alert to attitude, gesture, and expression,
and snaps the shutter at the critical moment when these signs all
blend together to describe the inner personality. One moment is all
you have. Like a hunter in search of a target, you look for the one
sign that is more characteristic than all the others. The job is
to sum up what a man is according to your understanding of him. The
painter has the advantage here since he can work toward this objective
through several leisurely sessions; the photographer has only one,
and that one as brief as a split second.” |
