Wolfgang Suschitzky (Austrian-British 1912-2016)
Cricket, England, 1940s
Vintage gelatin silver print on double-weight paper
Photographer’s credit stamp on verso
Print size: 10 3/8 x 8 ¼ inches
Mat size: 20 x 16 inches
Condition: Overall Very Good; one slight handling mark left center, visible only in raking light and under close inspection; some slight edge chipping not affecting the overall image
SUS-131
Retail: $3500
BIO: Wolfgang Suschitzky (Austrian 1912-2016)
2016: NYT Obituary: Wolfgang Suschitzky, Photographer and Cinematographer, Dies at 104, by Jennifer Szalai, Oct 8, 2016:
“Wolfgang Suschitzky, an Austrian-born photographer and cinematographer who was a key figure in a British film movement of the 1930s and ’40s that saw documentaries as a force for social good, died on Friday at his home in London. He was 104.
Mr. Suschitzky started working in documentary film in the late 1930s, when he collaborated with Paul Rotha. Along with the filmmaker and critic John Grierson, who was widely credited with coining the term documentary, Mr. Rotha was a leading proponent of the genre as an instrument that could dignify and elevate everyday life.
Mr. Suschitzky brought a similar social consciousness to his street photography. Duncan Forbes, who organized a show of Mr. Suschitzky’s work for the National Galleries of Scotland in 2002, said Mr. Suschitzky had been “careful to highlight social grades and distinctions” in photographs that often expressed quiet hope over despair.
Whether his subjects were workers laying down paving stones or men in fedoras browsing secondhand bookstore shelves, he depicted them as content doing whatever they were doing.
"Suschitzky often monumentalizes those he photographs,” Mr. Forbes wrote in an essay. “His are romantic images, consciously beautiful.”
Mr. Suschitzky’s documentaries included a film about the steel industry, an 11-minute short about rents in Aberdeen, Scotland, and a film about world hunger. He later won praise for feature film cinematography, notably for Joseph Strick’s 1967 version of “Ulysses” and the British crime film “Get Carter” (1971), directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine.
Wolfgang Suschitzky was born in Vienna on Aug. 29, 1912, to parents of Jewish heritage. The family lived in a working-class neighborhood where his father, Wilhelm, an atheist, ran a socialist bookstore with his brother.
Mr. Suschitzky wanted to study zoology but decided on photography as a more practical pursuit. He studied for three years at the school for graphic arts in Vienna, where he met a fellow photography student, Helena Voûte, known as Puck.
By the 1930s, Austria had become an untenable place for Jews.
“Red Vienna had disappeared, more or less,” Mr. Suschitzky later recalled, referring to the period after World War I when the Social Democrats controlled the city. “Parliament was dissolved, trade unions were forbidden, trade unionists were imprisoned. So I thought there is no future for me in Austria.”
Mr. Suschitzky and Ms. Voûte moved to Britain in early 1934 and married in March. His father committed suicide that spring; his mother escaped to Britain. His father’s brother, the co-owner of the Brüder Suschitzky bookstore, was later killed at Auschwitz.
In moving to Britain, Mr. Suschitzky and Ms. Voûte were following his older sister, Edith Tudor-Hart, who had married a British doctor.
In the 1990s, K.G.B. documents confirmed what British intelligence agencies had long suspected: Ms. Tudor-Hart, who was also a photographer, had been a spy for the Soviet Union. She had probably helped to recruit Kim Philby, a member of the Cambridge spy ring, which passed British intelligence secrets to Moscow during World War II.
Ms. Voûte told Dutch journalists that Ms. Tudor-Hart had persuaded her to join the spying effort as well. But Mr. Suschitzky maintained that his sister had shielded him from her espionage activities, according to Mr. Forbes, who has organized separate shows of the siblings’ work.
As a photographer newly arrived from continental Europe, Mr. Suschitzky was immediately drawn to animals as subjects, taking his Rolleiflex camera to the Whipsnade branch of the London Zoo and putting his lens through holes in the fences cut by understanding zookeepers. A favorite subject of his was a gorilla named Guy.
“The almost human expression is perhaps disturbing,” Mr. Suschitzky said of a photograph of Guy in an interview for a collection of his work published as a book in 2006.
Later in the 1930s Mr. Suschitzky and Ms. Voûte left Britain for the Netherlands. Their marriage ended soon afterward, and Mr. Suschitzky went back to Britain. In the ensuing war, Germany overran the Netherlands.
“My wife left me,” Mr. Suschitzky said, “which was great luck, because had I stayed there, I wouldn’t be alive anymore.”
Mr. Suschitzky’s next marriage, to Ilona Donat, ended in divorce. His marriage to Beatrice Cunningham ended with her death in 1989. Ms. Voûte died in 2003.
Mr. Suschitzky’s survivors include his partner, Heather Anthony; three children from his second marriage — Julia Donat, a theater casting director; Misha Donat, a musicologist and writer; and Peter Suschitzky, a longtime cinematographer for the director David Cronenberg — as well as nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
As a cinematographer Mr. Suschitzky was best known for this work on “Get Carter,” the story of a London gangster who travels to his hometown, Newcastle, to look into his brother’s death. The British Film Institute has ranked it among the top 100 British films.
Mr. Hodges, the film’s director, wrote in an email in 2014 that Mr. Suschitzky was essential to the project as director of photography. Mr. Hodges said he had wanted to do something grittier than the kind of “well-made polished film” that was more traditional at the time.
“I chose him because of a 1963 film, ‘The Small World of Sammy Lee,’ that he’d lit,” Mr. Hodges wrote. “I remembered it as being very experimental in its use of the hand-held camera and thought this is the D.P. for me.
“I was right. He was only too happy to help me break the rules that he’d adhered to most of his professional life.”
All filming was done on location, and Mr. Suschitzky had to maneuver the cameras in small rooms and cope with lighting conundrums, including finding suitable places in pubs to hide his lamps. (His solution: behind bottles.)
All the while, Mr. Suschitzky continued to take still photographs — of animals, children, celebrated figures and passers-by.
Mr. Suschitzky was self-effacing in interviews, casting himself as a mere observer of others.
“I had the good luck to meet interesting people in my job,” he once said, recalling his portraits of figures including Sir Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, and H. G. Wells. “You just shook hands and disappeared behind your camera.”
Collections:
James Hyman Collection
Museum of London
National Galleries Scotland
National Portrait Gallery, London
Science Museum Group
Tate (76 prints – 19 are later prints)
Group Exhibitions:
2012: Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, Berlin: “06-12 Review”
2012: Diemar/Noble Photography, London: “British / Summer / Time”
2012: Tate Britain: “Another London”
2014: Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow: “Another London”
2016: Ben Uri Gallery / Museum, London: “Unseen”
2016: Peter Fetterman Gallery: “Automobiles”
2017: Peter Fetterman Gallery: “Unseen: Silhouettes and Shadows”
2017: Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, Berlin: “07-17 Review”
Solo Exhibitions:
2001: The Special Photographer’s Company, London: “Unseen Works”
2006: ElliottHalls, Amsterdam: “A Grand Tour”
2006: Photographers’ Gallery, London: “Wolfgang Suschitzky”
2009: Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, Berlin: “I am a lucky man, London since 1934”
2011: Galerie Johannes Faber, Vienna: “Photographs 1932-1968”
2014: Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, Berlin: “I am a lucky man, London since 1934”
2016: Ingrid Deuss Gallery: “Wolf Suschitzky”, Antwerp
2016: Photographers’ Gallery: “Wolf Suschitzky’s London”
Monographs:
1940: “Photographing Children” by W. Suschitzky
1941: Photographing Animals” by W. Suschitzky
1944: “An Animal Tour. Zoo birds and beasts in colour photography” by Cecilia Davies and Wolfgang Suschitzky
1946: “That Baby. The story of Peter and his new brother” by W. Suschitzky. by L. Frankl
1947: “Open Air ABC in Colour Photography” by Wolfgang Suschitzky
1950: “Faithfully ours. Cats and dogs photographed by W. Suschitzky”. Text by Cécile Smythe (Magna-Crome Books.)
1951: “The Flying Poodle” by Wolfgang Suschitzky and Roland Collins
1952: “All about taking Baby and your Camera” (Focal Photo Guide. no. 38.) by Wolfgang Suschitzky
1955: Great Photographs I: Suschitzky, Old Bailey, London
1957: “Kingdom of the Beasts” by Julian Huxley & W. Suschitzky
1957: “Animal Babies: 64 Plates in Photogravure”
1957: “Au royaume des animaux” Julian Sorell Huxley, Wolfgang Suschitzky
1958: “En gyllene bok om vilda djur” by Wolfgang Suschitzky
1958: “Wild Animals” by Wolfgang Suschitzky
1961: “Island Zoo” by Gerald Durrell and Wolfgang Suschitzky
1961: “Brendan of Ireland” by Bryan Macmahon and Wolfgang Suschitzky
1967: “Brendan ov ierland” (Children everywhere series) by Wolfgang Suschitzky
1989: “Charing Cross Road in the Thirties” (3nishen Paperback, Illustrated)
Suschitzky, Wolf; Samuel, Raphael
2002: “An exile's eye: The photography of Wolfgang Suschitzky”, by by Duncan Forbes, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
2006: Wolf Suschitzky Photos by Wolfgang Suschitzky, Synema
2016: “Unseen: London, Paris, New York: Photographs by Wolfgang Suschitzky, Dorothy Bohm and Neil Libbert 1930s-1960s” by Katy Barron, Michael Berkowitz (Contributions by), Zelda Cheatle (Contributions by)
Found Publications:
1949: British Film and Television Yearbook - Volume 3 - Page 245
1958: “The Beauty of Cats” - Page 5
1982: Paul Rotha - Page 104 by Paul Marris
1996: American Cinematographer - Volume 77, Issues 7-12 - Page 40 by American Society of Cinematographers
1996: The British Cinematographer - Page 141 by Duncan J. Petrie
2002: British Journal of Photography, p. 46, 48
2003: Get Carter: The British Film Guide 6 - Page 1 by Steve Chibnall
2005: Arts in Exile in Britain 1933-1945: Politics and Cultural Identity - Page 79 by Shulamith Behr, Marian Malet
2006: America's Best, Britain's Finest: A Survey of Mixed Movies - Page 181 by John Howard Reid
2007: How we are: photographing Britain from the 1840s to the present by Val Williams, Susan Bright – p. 103, 2005, 2009
2007: Josef von Sternberg: The Case of Lena Smith - Page Z-68 by Alexander Horwath, Michael Omasta
2010: Gerd Arntz By Gerd Arntz, p. 286-7
2012: Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars by Lisa Silverman
2012: Conversations with Cinematographers - Page 179 by David A. Ellis
2013: Destination London: German-Speaking Emigres and British Cinema, 1925-1950, edited by Tim Bergfelder, Christian Cargnelli, Acknowledgements
2013: Imagining Organizations: Performative Imagery in Business and Beyond by Paolo Quattrone, Nigel Thrift, Francois-Regis Puyou
2013: British Film Culture in the 1970s - Page 175 by Sue Harper
2016: BFI London: Obituary
2016: The New York Times: Obituary (Oct 9)
2016: The Guardian: Obituary (Fri 7)
Current: BBC Radio 3: Photographers Dorothy Bohm, Wolfgang Suschitzky and Neil Libbert, Carry On Films A selection of photographs by Dorothy Bohm, Wolfgang Suschitzky and Neil Libbert
PIX Publishing Agency:
We are now representing a large collection of prints from P.I.X. (PIX) Publishing Inc., the photography agency founded in New York City in November 1935 by German photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt & George Karger and photography agents Leon Daniel (chief of Associated Press in Berlin from 1927-1935) & Celia Krutschuk, all of whom fled Nazi Germany and found their new homes in NYC.
In 1973, the PIX Publishing agency archive was donated to an east-coast library where housed until 2018. PIX represented such photographers as Cecil Beaton, Ferenc Berko, Edouard Boubat, Josef Breitenbach, Robert Capa, Joe Clark, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ed Feingersh, Laura Gilpin, John Gutmann, Nina Leen, Don McCullin, Marion Post-Wolcott, Willy Ronis, Fred Stein, Ezra Stoller, Julian Wasser, Garry Winogrand, George Zimbel and many more.
PIX also worked with the prestigious agencies Camera Press, Dalmas, Gamma, and Holmes-Lebel, among others. PIX also represented Gökşin Sipahioğlu and Gilles Caron, the founders of world-renowned SIPA Press.
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