Die Presse, April 5, 2020
German original: https://www.diepresse.com/5795973/erich-lessing-sensibler-chronist-des-20-jahrhunderts
Time in pictures. Lessing, the passionate companion and observer of historical events is often present when history is made. The pictures of the doyen of Austrian photography are engraved in collective memory.
When a syndicate is founded by the three photographers Robert Capa, Chim Seymour, and Henri Cartier-Bresson in a New York restaurant on April 27, 1947, the friends drink a magnum bottle of champagne – they quickly agree on name of the photographic agency: Magnum
Three things are critical for the three founders: eternal curiosity, a passion for photography, and the anger over the marketing of their photos by the media.
The Magnum photographers tirelessly roam the world and believe they can change it through truth. They are always on the lookout for the intuitive shot and they shape the century of the reportage. They capture time with their cameras. Soon, the term Magnum-photo is coined, the highest distinction in the industry.
And soon the international elite of photojournalism is working for Magnum – also from Austria: The Graz-based journalist Inge Morath, who also begins to photograph in the Magnum environment as an assistant to Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1953, Ernst Haas, whose early photos of returning Austrian prisoners of war were published worldwide, and Erich Lessing with Magnum member number ten.
Erich Lessing, born in Vienna in 1923, whose photographs are published in the most renowned magazines of the world, like Life and Paris Match, who repeatedly is being termed chronicler of the 20th century, is often there when contemporary history is being written.
With his camera, Lessing documents political events in Northern Africa and Europe – as a sensitive companion of historic events and societal course settings. His photos are engraved into collective memory.
Like on May 15, 1955, when Leopold Figl, together with the Allied Ministers for Foreign Affairs – after he proclaimed “Austria is free” in the Belvedere’s marble hall – presents the signed state treaty on the balcony. He is the only one, who – once again with his legendary instinct – photographs the fateful scene from the viewpoint of the cheering spectators.
Also in October 1956, when the Hungarians want to send their invidious Stalinist government to hell: when an eight meter-high bronze statue of Stalin is torn down at Budapest’s Dísz Square shortly after 9:30 in the evening. For a short while it looks like the communist regime in Hungary would fall with the monumental Stalin statue. But the uprising was squashed violently, only a few hours later hundreds of people are dead. Lessing is honored several times for his reportage on the Hungarian revolution, about the hopes and euphoria of the first days; among other distinctions he was awarded the American Art Director’s Award.
His proximity to politicians is unique from today’s point of view. Also because Lessing does not try to publish all photos, he builds a relationship of trust that culminates in an invitation by Konrad Adenauer: the German Chancellor asks Lessing to inform him about the peculiarities of Charles de Gaulle, who was portrayed by the Viennese photographer several times.
Gripping reportage photographs.
Gradually becoming less convinced of having an impact as a photo journalist, Lessing turns to historical topics, archeology, science, and art in the mid-50s – photographic evocation. For many years, Lessing is the house photographer of Paris’s Louvre.
Instead of his gripping black and white reportage photographs, large format color photographs –which soon establish him as an art photographer– are now at the center of his work. And Eric Lessing and his camera also accompany international film productions like Alexis Sorbas, Moby Dick or The Sound of Music.
The highly decorated photographer holds workshops in Arles, during the Salzburg Summer Academy and at the Vienna University for Applied Art, at the Biennale in Venice, and as a UNIDO-Expert in Ahmadabad, India. Everywhere he goes, he fascinates with his aura and the humanism of the Austrian photo artist.
As a Jewish child of a dentist and a concert pianist, growing up in a public housing complex in Vienna’s Josefstadt district, Erich witnesses the persecution and deportation of his family; he himself manages to escape to Palestine as a 16-year old. Thanks to the support of Teddy Kollek, later the mayor of Jerusalem, Lessing manages to get on the last ship that was allowed to dock at Haifa in 1939.
In Haifa, he studies radio technology, works as a taxi driver and in a Kibbutz. The hobby of his youth soon becomes his profession: he begins to work as a beach- and children’s photographer. At the same time, he is active as a driver for the British Army, where he also serves as a pilot, moving between Beirut, Baghdad, and Tel Aviv.
Within a span of 50 years, more than 60 books by Lessing are published. His photos are shown in over 200 exhibitions in Europe, North- and South America. At the age of 88, Lessing opens his Viennese gallery –because there is no Austrian photo museum– and gifts his archive of over 60,000 photographs to the Austrian National Library. Among them are the famous Lessing portraits of Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle, Leopold Figl and Nikita Khrushchev, Golda Meir and Bruno Kreisky.
But Lessing is not only fascinated by politicians who wrote contemporary history, but also by individualists of the art scene. Like by his friend Helmut Qualtinger.
And in particular also by Herbert von Karajan: both the extroverted way of working, as well as the extravagant lifestyle of the maestro fascinate the photographer. He accompanies the artistic nonpareil of the century for years. Lessing photographs Karajan during the rehearsals for Beethoven’s Third Piano Concert with Glenn Gould, or with Romy Schneider during recording sessions for Peter and the Wolf, during rehearsals in Berlin and Lucern, in Vienna’s State Opera, during the Missa-Solemnis concert at Musikverein oder during Fidelio in Salzburg’s Felsenreitschule.
The mostly unapproachable Mr. Karajan values the sensitive photo artist and feels comfortable in his presence. They both travel a lot together: across Europe by train, in a motorboat on Vierwaldstaedtersee, rushing from concert to concert in a small plane, or riding in Herbert von Karajan’s gullwing door – Mercedes 300 SL.
One is present everywhere, every time: the camera of Erich Lessing.