Heinrich Kuehn

Heinrich Kuehn Austrian, b. Germany, 1866-1944 Carl Christian Heinrich Kuehn (also spelled Kühn) was a key figure in the aesthetic movement in photography, as well as a teacher, writer, and theoretician. Born in Dresden, he studied medicine and science in Innsbruck, Leipzig, Berlin, and Freiburg before beginning to photograph in 1883. In Austria and Germany, Kuehn's role was not unlike that of Alfred Stieglitz in the United States. Not surprisingly, after the two men met in 1904, they remained close friends for many years. Kuehn believed in the artistic manipulation of the photographic image and was responsible for refinements in the gum bichromate process, through which a photograph could be made to resemble paintings and prints more closely. Among his influences were the early Scottish calotypists David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, who were also acknowledged by Stieglitz, and whose prints combined the softness conveyed by their paper negatives with a formality of composition and depth of tone derived from painting. Kuehn had a long, productive career, during which he worked with Hans Watzek and Hugo Henneberg on multiple gum bichromate processes. Besides exhibiting and publishing widely, he founded and directed the Schule für Kunstlerische Photographie in Innsbruck (1914-20) and formed the Viennese Trifolium (Das Kleeblatt). He wrote and published two technical manuals and many articles. An inventor and designer of photographic processes and equipment, Kuehn was elected into the Linked Ring in 1895, was a member of the Vienna Camera Club, and received numerous awards and recognition for his work. T.W.F.