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LUCKHARDT, FRITZ (1843–1894)
Austrian photographer, technical writer
Fritz Luckhardt was born on 17 March 1843 in Kassel
(Germany, at that time seat of the government of the
Kurfürstentums Hessen), the son of a soap manufac-
turing family. He received training as a chemist at the
polytechnic institute in Kassel. During a stay in Paris
he decided to become a photographer and joined the
service with René Prudent Partrice Dagron. He spent
a short time in England, and then in 1865 went to the
establishment in Vienna where he worked fi rst as a
foreign language correspondent of the photo dealer and
publisher Oskar Kramer. With the opening of his own
studio in Vienna in 1867, Luckhardt’s rapid ascent made
him one of the most sought photographers in Viennese
society at that time. In 1900 Félix Nadar called him “Le
maître of the maîtres” in Quand j’étais photographe (Les
primitifs de la photographie). For Henry Baden Pritchard
in The Photographic Studios in Europe, 1882, Luckhardt
was the epitome of a success-conscious and nonchalant
gentleman. In the poses and gestures produced, in the
purposeful light arrangement, Luckhardt’s always
more-or-less over-pointed portrait style nevertheless
speaks volumes for the requirement for exclusivity of
his customers and his own visual culture. In addition
he also belonged to the continuous technical perfec-
tion and active lobbyism, which Luckhardt followed
with the modern equipment of his studios, by various
club memberships as well as by book publications and
regular contributions in German-language technical
periodicals.
Maren Groening
Biography
Fritz Luckhardt was born on 17 March 1843 in Kassel.
As son of a family of soap-makers, he was to take over
the enterprise of his grandfather and study chemistry at
the Kasseler polytechnic institute, then go on to training
at Hanover, and fi nally to work in a Paris perfumery.
Instead he turned to photography. After a time with René
Prudent Patrice Dragon in Paris and a stay in England,
he settled in Vienna in 1865 and opened his own studio
there in 1867 as an elegant society photographer. His
business success stemmed from portraits of beautiful
women (mostly actresses), which he exported in Ste-
reoformat to the United States. He received the title of a
K.K. photographer in 1870, and in 1883 was an honorary
professor of the duke from Saxonia Meiningen. From
1871 to 1887 he was a secretary of the photographic
society in Vienna. In addition he maintained member-
ships in the photographic Societies of Berlin and Frank-
furt/Main as well as in Viennese agencies: Club of the
amateur photographers (from 1888, 1893 renamed in
Viennese Camera club), Association of Photographic
Coworkers (from 1891), scientifi c association “Skiop-
tikon” (from 1891). After Luckhardt’s death in Vienna
on 29 November 1894, his widow Franziska took over
the studio. The best overview of the former private col-
lection is probably given by Gerd Rosenberg in Vienna.
In 1908 the Viennese city and federal state library bought
15 letters addressed to Luckhardt.LUMIÈRE, AUGUSTE (1862–1954) AND
LOUIS (1864–1948)
In French, lumière translates as “light.” Auguste Lumière
and Louis Lumière were born into a name that fi ttingly
predicted their future as technological innovators in
photography, cinema and, for Auguste, “medical biol-
ogy, pharmodynamics, and experimental physiology”
(Cartwright, 1992, 129). Auguste and Louis Lumière,
two of the most famous brothers in the world, were
born in Besançon, France. Their father Antoine Lumière
(1840–1911) was a painter and a photographer. But
their father was more than artistic; Antoine was a born
businessman who was greatly motivated by the new
inventions during the advent of France’s Belle Époque
(Beautiful Era). The spirit of their father and the spirit
of their paternal name set the mise en scène for their
invention of cinema. By the end of the nineteenth-cen-
tury, there were many visionaries who were trying to
animate the still photograph, including, most famously,
Thomas Edison (1847–1931), Eadweard Muybridge
(1830–1904) Charles-Èmile Reynaud (1844–1918) and,
of course, the Lumière Brothers.
In 1870, fearing the Franco-Prussian war (1870–71),
the Lumière family moved from Eastern France to Lyon.
It was in the city center that Antoine opened his photo-
graphic studio. While running the studio, Antoine kept
a watchful and excited eye on the education of Louis
and Auguste. The two boys attended La Martinière,
Lyon’s largest technical high school. As a child, Louis
was frequently troubled by headaches and had to spend
much of his time at home, but, nevertheless managed
to focus, very successfully, on inventions. As an ado-
lescent, Louis designed the instant dry photographic
plate christened the Etiquette bleue (blue label), which
would amass the Lumière family fortune. With Louis’s
invention in hand, Antoine left the photo studio behind
and acquired an extensive site on the outskirts of Lyon
to manufacture and market Etiquette bleue.
In the summer of 1894, Antoine Lumière went to
Paris and saw a demonstration of Edison’s Kineto-
scope. (In 1893, Edison had been granted a patent for
“An Apparatus for Exhibiting Photographs of Moving
Objects.”) But the Kinetoscope was limited: only one
person at a time could use the “peepshow” viewing