Umbo, born Otto Maximilian Umbehr (January 18, 1902 – May 13, 1980), was a German photojournalist and artist who had studied in the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

and worked as a photojournalist for the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After the end of it, he had to endure many years of financial hardships, which only changed after photography became accepted an own discipline of art and from 1975 onwards he had several exhibitions.

Education and early life

Otto Umbehr was born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

and is known for his photo journalism as well as artworks.Otto Umbehr
in the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

Umbehr was the second of six children of industrial architect Karl Friedrich Umbehr. His mother Frieda died when he was a young boy. He was trained in Duisburg, Aachen and Düsseldorf. In 1921, he studied at the

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

where he attended classes by

Johannes Itten Johannes Itten (11 November 1888 – 25 March 1967) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (''Staatliches Bauhaus'') school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger ...

. At the Bauhaus he became acquainted with

Oskar Schlemmer Oskar Schlemmer (4 September 1888 – 13 April 1943) was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923, he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working at the wo ...

Paul Citroen Roelof Paul Citroen (15 December 1896 – 13 March 1983) was a German-born Dutch artist, art educator and co-founder of the New Art Academy in Amsterdam. Among his best-known works are the photo-montage Metropolis and the 1949 Dutch postage stam ...

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

and

Eva Besnyö Éva Besnyő (1910–2003) was a Dutch-Hungarian photographer who participated in the ''Nieuwe Fotografie'' (New Photography) movement. Biography Born in Budapest, Besnyö was brought up in a well-to-do Jewish home. In 1928, she started to study ...

and was influenced by

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the i ...

. With Citroen's help, Umbehr took on the artist name of Umbo and started a photo studio in 1926. He made photo collages as a camera assistant for the 1927 film by

Walter Ruttmann Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for direc ...

called '' Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis''.Robert Capa: A Biography
by Richard Whelan on

Google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

Professional career

In 1928 he became one of the founding members of the agency Dephot (Deutscher Photo Service GmbH) where he was friends with Felix H. Man and

Robert Capa Robert Capa (born Endre Ernő Friedmann; October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist as well as the companion and professional partner of photographer Gerda Taro. He is considered by some to ...

. The agency was closed by the Nazis in 1933. During the Nazi period, Umbo worked as a photojournalist for the magazine

Signal In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

, which reported from the frontlines. In 1943 his photo archives, containing 50,000–60,000 negatives, were destroyed in a bombing raid on

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Only a few of his works from that period have survived. After the war Umbo returned 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 ...

with his wife, the graphic designer Imgard Wanders and their daughter. He lost his left eye, but that did not prevent him from continuing his art. He is known for photos of the ruins of postwar Hanover and later taught photography at the School of Applied Arts there. From 1975 onwards his photographs were more widely accepted by the art critics and he was able to take part in several exhibitions.

Publications

* Bernhard Holeczek (zusammen mit Christiane Hinze und Heinrich Riebesehl): ''UMBO Photographien 1925–1933''. Spectrum Photogalerie im Kunstmuseum Hannover mit Sammlung Sprengel, Hannover 1979. (Ausstellungskatalog Hannover 1979) * Christiane Hinze: Aspekte des Bildjournalismus – exemplarisch aufgezeigt am Beispiel Otto Umbehr (UMBO), Examensarbeit an der Universitaet Hannover, 3. Mai 1979 * Herbert Molderings: ''UMBO. Vom Bauhaus zum Bildjournalismus''.

Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen Kunstverein may refer to: Germany * , an art association, founded in 1986 in Aachen * Kunstverein Arnsberg, an association for contemporary art in Arnsberg * , an art association in Karlsruhe * , an art society which operates the Kunsthalle Bremen ...

, Düsseldorf 1995. (Ausstellungskatalog Düsseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, München, Paris 1995–1996) * Herbert Molderings: ''Umbo: Otto Umbehr 1902–1980''. Richter Verlag, Düsseldorf 1996. * Herbert Molderings: ''Umbo''. Centre National de la Photographie, Paris 1997, (Photo Poche 66). . * Inka Schube u. a. (Hgg.): ''UMBO. Fotograf'', Köln: Snoeck Verlagsgesellschaft

019 Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music ...

. * Hans-Jürgen Tast: ''Umbo: Ich habe es gesehen. Ich habe es erlebt. Ich habe es festgehalten.'', Schellerten 2019, Kulleraugen,

References

External links

Otto Umbehr
on website ''Weimar: Otto Umbehr'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Umbehr, Otto 1902 births 1980 deaths Artists from Düsseldorf 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German male painters Bauhaus alumni