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Helmut Gernsheim

2 of 4 portraits of Helmut Gernsheim

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Helmut Gernsheim

by Ida Kar
2 1/4 inch square film negative, 13 January 1962
Purchased, 1999
Photographs Collection
NPG x132972

Sitterback to top

  • Helmut Gernsheim (1913-1995), Photographic historian and collector. Sitter in 4 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Ida Kar (1908-1974), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 1567 portraits, Sitter in 137 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Gernsheim was one of Kar's key champions and included her in his survey Creative Photography Aesthetic Trends 1839-60 as well as arranging for the acquisition of 124 exhibition prints for his collection in 1966.
Kar photographed Gernsheim at his Primrose Hill flat with his collection of African art.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Freestone, Clare (appreciation) Wright, Karen (appreciation), Ida Kar Bohemian Photographer, 2011 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 10 March to 19 June 2011), p. 110 Read entry

    Gernsheim studied art history in his home town of Munich before taking up photography in 1934. Being part-Jewish, he used an offer of work to escape Nazi Germany and in 1937 moved to London. During the Second World War he photographed for the National Buildings Record and wrote his critique New Photo Vision (1942). Gernsheim began to collect work by early photographers including Julia Margaret Cameron and Lewis Carroll, and, along with his wife Alison, published The History of Photography (1955), a definitive study and one of seventeen volumes that the couple wrote between 1948 and 1966. Gernsheim sold his vast collection to the University of Texas in 1963. He was one of Kar's key champions and included her in his survey Creative Photography: Aesthetic Trends 1839-1960, as well as arranging for the acquisition of 124 prints for his collection in 1966. Writing for Kar's 1963 Birmingham exhibition, he noted: 'Today her work is gaining an international reputation and many people consider her to be one of the leading portrait photographers of famous contemporaries.' Kar photographed Gernsheim at his flat in Primrose Hill, north London, on 13 January 1962, with his collection of African art.

Placesback to top

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Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1962back to top

Current affairs

After a series of by-election defeats, the prime minister, Harold MacMillan organises a drastic cabinet reshuffle, dismissing one third of his cabinet. Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe's wry comment summed up the desperate action: 'greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life.'
Britain suffers the 'Big Freeze' with no frost-free nights between 22nd December 1962 and 5th March 1963.

Art and science

The Beatles have their first hit with Love Me Do and release their first album Please Please Me.
The new Coventry Cathedral is consecrated and creates a showcase for British artistic talent with the first performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, a wall hanging by Graham Sutherland, stained glass by John Piper, and sculptures by Jacob Epstein and Elizabeth Frink.

International

The world comes to the brink of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis. In response to the USA's nuclear advantage, the USSR sent missiles to Cuba. The crisis lasted for 12 days before a deal was finally stuck between Khrushchev and Kennedy in which the Cuban missile bases were dismantled in return for the secret removal of US missiles from Turkey.

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