Board_Advisors_etc 3..5

pelled from Germany in August 1934, Weber kept
on doing photographs for the German papers,
chieflyBIZ, after leavingMIPin 1932. The follow-
ing years he went to Africa, Asia, and the Near
East. In 1943 and 1944, he photographed in differ-
ent European countries, recording the situations
there. In January 1946, after nearly 200 reportages
with over 1,300 pictures, Weber’s photos were pub-
lished inBIZfor the last time. The magazine had
decreased to only eight pages by the end of the war
and went out of print. In 1945 and 1946, Weber
worked for an American army magazine. At the end
of 1946 he became chief reporter of theNeue Illu-
strierte(NI), the first German magazine after the
Second World War, published in Cologne. From
1946 to 1948 he took pictures in Germany, made
portraits of cities like Munich, Hamburg, and
Frankfurt in and after the war and traveled to
England and Italy. In 1949, he was one of the first
photojournalists who entered the United States
after the war. The following years he traveled to
the United States many times and in various reports
drew a detailed picture of this country. In this con-
text he produced New York—Moskau, a visual
comparision of the two cities published in 1956 in
four issues of theNI.
In 1963, he leftNI, which now belonged to the
Baur Verlag and had become less trivial. Television
became Weber’s new medium. He produced portraits
of different nations, often hotspots (Cuba, China,
Mozambique), and political personalities (Yassar
Arafat, Ben Gurion). In 1964, he was one of the
first Western journalists who was allowed to enter
China. Until 1981 he worked on documentary pro-
jects there, showing its culture, education, industry,
and more.
Throughout his career, Weber was looking for
something foreign, something unusual or new.
Although his pictures have no overriding, unique
aesthetic and his way of telling things is quite sim-
ple, he always concentrates on the essential point.
Therefore he was often putting the photos in
sequences (three or four pictures), comparisons
(juxtapositions of two pictures) or a combination
of several pictures telling a story.
There has not been much written about Wolfgang
Weber, nor have his photographes been widely
exhibited. Yet his work is considerable, consisting
of 40 years of photographing and nearly 20 years of
filmmaking. He did over 900 reportages for maga-
zines between 1925 and 1966, publishing about 3,000
of his photographies and over 20 documentary films,
which required a great deal of preparation time and
were often made under difficult conditions. The
Weber estate, located in the Department of Photo-

graphy at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Ger-

many, encompasses more than 100,000 negatives,

thousands of study prints, and a great number of

film sequences and reels.

Weber traveled and worked his whole life.

Whether for publishers or film institutions, he was

always organizing his next assignment and plan-

ning his next trip. As a result, he did not spend

much time putting his materials into structured

order. Although it is now nearly organized, it will

take time to prepare a presentation of Weber’s

pictures and his unique way of reportage.

KristinaGRU ̈B

Seealso: Photography in Europe: Germany and

Austria

Biography

Born in Leipzig, Germany, 17 June 1902. Self-taught in

photography from 1919. Studied ethnology, philosophy,

and music at the University of Munich, 1920–1926;

trained as a conductor at the Akademie fu ̈r Tonkunst,

Munich, 1922–1926. From 1925 freelance photojournal-

ist; working mainly forBerliner Illustreirte Zeitungand

Mu ̈nchner Illustrierte Presse; chief reporter, ‘‘Wort und

Bild’’ Mu ̈nchner Illustrierte Presse, 1930–1931; staff

photographer, Ullstein Verlag, Berlin, 1932–1945; chief

reporterNeue Illustrierte, Cologne, 1946–1963; freelance

documentary film producer for German television,

1964–1981; photographer for Burda Verlag, Cologne,

1964–1985. Died in Cologne, Germany, 5 March 1985.

Individual Exhibitions

1982 Reisen ohne Ende: Fotos 1935–1939; Historisches

Archiv der Stadt Ko ̈ln, Cologne, Germany

1984 Barcelona 1928; Caixa de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Group Exhibitions

1950 Photo-Kino Ausstellung(later photokina); Cologne,

Germany

1977 Documenta 6; Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany

1983 Die Fotografische Sammlung; Museum Folkwang,

Essen, Germany

1991 Barcelona-Zur Stadt-und Architekturgeschichte; Uni-

versita ̈tsmuseum, Marburg, Germany

1992/3Photo-Sequenzen; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Germany

1996 Das deutsche Auge; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Ger-

many

2001 Wenn Berlin Biarritz wa ̈re-Architektur in Bildern der

Fotografischen Sammlung; Museum Folkwang, Essen,

Germany

Further Reading

Beaton, Cecil, and Gail Buckland.The Magic Image: Gen-

ius of Photography from 1939 to the Present Day. Lon-

don and Boston: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975.

WEBER, WOLFGANG