Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1909 (Heft 28))

THE “INTERNATIONAL GROUP” AT THE
DRESDEN EXPOSITION

THE following is a free translation of an article by (Professor
Dr. Paul Schumann, which appeared in the Dresdner Anzeiger,
June 24th, 1909, on the subject of the photographs shown by the
“ International Group.” This “group” was called into existence
for this particular exhibition only by Mr. Heinrich Kuhn, of
Innsbruck, who selected its members and designated the number
of prints each member was to show :
In the beginning it was photography—just plain photography. It was classified as “art”
and no objection was raised. Later on, even to the present exhibition, a differentiation was
made between professional and amateur photography. At the same time people began to talk
about art photography, and many critics brought forth ingenious arguments to prove that a pho-
tographer could not be an artist. At the very outset of the movement, 1843-1845, the painter,
David Octavius Hill, made such excellent portraits as were not duplicated during the next fifty
years. Hill was no professional, as he did not work for gain; nor was he an amateur, as he did
not pursue the process as a pastime, but merely as a preparatory study for the large portrait
groups that he painted for private and municipal associations. Hill’s paintings are as hard and
awkward as the ordinary group portrait, but his photographs are masterpieces. Whether Hill
was an artist is difficult to decide in the light of latter-day contentions. He was an industrious painter
of mediocre talent and yet an excellent portrait photographer. The use of photographs for ordinary
portrait paintings has become a general custom; and occasionally one may find photographic delinea-
tions so excellent in quality as to make them preferable to the average painted portrait.
A difference analogous to that of art and photography seems to exist between amateurs and
professionals. The difference does not lie in the valuation, for amateurs also sell their prints.
Neither does technical perfection mark the dividing line. Excellent workmanship can be found in
both classes of workers. Perhaps it would be more just to say that the amateur photographs what
he likes, while the professional executes direct orders; but even progress here is noticeable. The
advanced professional can no longer be induced to make cheap pictures; he has the courage to say
that he makes artistic photographs to suit his own fancy, and that the ordinary portraits may be
had across the way. What does this imply ? That the differentiation between amateur and pro-
fessional products is steadily on the decrease, and that some day photographs will be judged solely
by the standard of being either good or bad. Good prints will be accepted and bad or mediocre
prints rejected. An adequate jury system in this exhibition could have easily reduced the ex-
hibits—professional as well as amateur—to one-third of their present number. The exhibition
would have gained in quality and become more easily comprehensible.
In the meanwhile we must take things as they are.Only eighteen members of
established reputation form the International Group of Art Photographers. Many of their
names are familiar to us from the Hamburg Exhibition in 1892, where (rather to our detriment)
we made our first acquaintance with the advanced productions of American, French and English
workers. Since then the Austrians, Kuhn, Henneberg, Spitzer, and the late Watzek, joined the
ranks. Then, in 1902, when Ernst Juhl introduced in his magazine the work of the American,
Eduard J. Steichen,we encountered a veritable storm of opposition. The surprise and irritation
that greet all artistic innovations gradually gave way to appreciation and today nobody would deny
that the International Art Photographers march in the very vanguard of artistic endeavor. Their
exhibit was arranged by Heinrich Kuhn, of Innsbruck.
The International Society is really nothing more than a group of American workers who
have admitted a few distinguished foreigners into their ranks. Of the eighteen members eleven
hail from America; three are British; while France and Austria claim each two members. Ger-
many is not represented unless it were by Frank Eugene (Smith), who, although an American,
resides in Munich.

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