Katharina Eleonore Behrend (July 22, 1888 – November 15, 1973) was a German-born Dutch photographer who is remembered for a wide variety of photographic genres including a nude self-portrait.
Biography
Born in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
, she grew up in a well-to-do family as the daughter of
Robert Behrend, a chemistry professor, later moving to
Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
. She carefully recorded the photographs she took from 1904 with her father's 9 x 12 cm camera, noting shutter-speed, aperture, location and the names of the people photographed.
"Behrend, Katharina (1888 - 1973)"
, Nederlands Fotomuseum. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
Behrend's work is archived at the Nederlands Fotomuseum. The images from 1904 to 1913 cover the time the family lived in Hanover while those from 1913 to 1929 cover her life in the Netherlands after she married Arie Haentjens, director of the steam engine factory in Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...
. In 1930, when she started using a Zeiss Ikon Ikonta, she stopped keeping detailed records.["Behrend, Katharina"]
Nederlands Fotomuseum. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
Some 900 negatives by Behrend are kept in the museum. In addition to photographs of family and friends, there are views of Algeria (1905–06), including the temple ruins at Timgad
Timgad ( ar, تيمقاد, links=, lit=, translit=Tīmgād, known as Marciana Traiana Thamugadi) was a Roman city in the Aurès Mountains of Algeria. It was founded by the Roman Emperor Trajan around 100 AD. The full name of the city was ''Colon ...
, and of her husband's factory (1913–1915). There are also nude photographs of herself and her friends (1910–11) at a time when she supported the German Freikörperkultur
The Freikörperkultur (FKK) is a social and health culture that originated in the German Empire; its beginnings were historically part of the '' Lebensreform'' social movement in the late 19th century. The ''Freikörperkultur'', which translates ...
movement.[
]
References
External links
Examples of Katharina Behrend's work from the Nederlands Fotomuseum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Behrend, Katharina
German photojournalists
1888 births
1973 deaths
Dutch women photographers
Photographers from Hamburg
20th-century German journalists
20th-century German photographers
German women photographers
20th-century Dutch photographers
20th-century women photographers
20th-century German women
20th-century Dutch women
20th-century Dutch people
Women photojournalists
German emigrants to the Netherlands