Hanni Schwarz was a German nude and portrait photographer, who worked in Berlin from around 1901. She is considered a well-known professional photographer in the German Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Schwarz's life dates are unknown. Before turning to photography, she was a teacher at her father's school in Basel.[1] Around 1904, she took over the photo studio of Johannes Hülsen in Berlin together with Anna Walter. Around 1909, she ran her photo studio together with Marie Luise Schmidt.[2] For 27 May 1919, it is registered as Atelier Hanni Schwarz in the Dorotheenstraße and specialised in portrait and dance photography.[3]
From its foundation in 1903, the magazine published photographs of her.[4] The in Berlin, which was a leader in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s for postcards of famous film actors as well as with film scenes, published numerous portraits taken by her. A portrait Hanni Schwarz had made of the artist Fidus appeared in a book edited by in 1910.[5] In the magazine Sport im Bild No. 5, 5 March 1926 a photograph of her was printed with the caption: Frau Chicky Sparkuhl-Fichelscher, our popular fashion illustrator, in her self-designed carnival costume of green silk and silver sequins. Ball des Deutschen Theaters.[6]
In April 1908, a so-called beauty evening took place in the "Mozartsaal" of the Neues Schauspielhaus, at which nude photographs by Hanni Schwarz and Wilhelm von Gloeden were presented, projected onto a screen. By this time, Schwarz had already made a name for herself as fine-art photography.[7] In 1910 she participated in the Brussels International 1910 with nude photographs.[8] Colour photographs of her were shown at the "Bugra" in 1914.[9]
It is said that a portrait photo of her contemporary Theodor Heuss with his wife, which was planned in 1912, failed because Schwarz forgot to change the photographic plate and a double exposure with Dr. Milch occurred.[10]
The most recent photographs attributable to her date from 1930, after which she no longer appears.[11] In 2000, works by Hanni Schwarz were included in the exhibition Le siècle du corps. Photographies 1900-2000 at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne.[12]