(1915, Saarbrücken, Germany – 1978)
Otto Steinert He was a German photographer who initiated Fotoform and promoted the movement of subjective photography. He is considered one of the most influential photographers in Germany during the postwar period of the Second World War.
He started as a doctor by profession and became a self-taught photographer. After the Second World War, he started working for the State School of Arts and Crafts (Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Handwerk, today HTW) in Saarbrücken. He was the founder of the Fotoform Photography group .
His photographic work is linked to his pedagogical work and is governed by formal research and the search for a specifically photographic language. His work in recovering the ideas of the photographers of the Bauhaus School and its application in the fifties is remarkable; as well as his participation in the artistic movements of Fotoform and of subjective photography.
One principle he proposes is that the value of photography does not depend on the photographed subject, but on the creative process of the photographer, so in his exhibitions on subjective photography he includes authors as diverse as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Raoul Hausmann, Robert Doisneau, Irving Penn or William Klein. Steinert said:“I admit anything that has quality”.
Some of his photographs
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