Fritz Eschen
Portraits of a Photojournalist

Since January 2014 the Berlinische Galerie has hosted the Thomas Friedrich Research Grant in Photography. Initiated by the patron of photography Manfred Heiting, it enables scholars to spend a year working on a set of holdings in the Photographic Collection. In 2018 the research report was devoted to the photographer Fritz Eschen (1900–1964).

In the early 1930s Fritz Eschen had made a name for himself in Berlin as a press photographer. After the National Socialists took power in 1933, however, he was increasingly exposed to repression, humiliation and danger on account of his Jewish origins, and from 1941 he was conscripted as a forced labourer. His marriage to Gertrude, who was not Jewish, was the only thing that saved him from deportation.

Despite the growing restrictions, he was able at first to carry on working as a photographer. Some of his pictures were even published during the Nazi period. Eschen’s photography met with recognition during his lifetime – regardless of changing political circumstances in Germany. The exhibition illustrates the continuity in his visual idiom with its sober objectivity, experienced composition and occasional delight in experiment. Only the snapshot character of some images taken in the immediate post-war years stands out.

The research report “Fritz Eschen: Portraits of a Photojournalist” considers not only the photographs, but also the multi-facetted personality and turbulent life of the photographer.