Rudolf Franz Lehnert Explained

Rudolf Franz Lehnert
Birth Date:13 July 1878
Birth Place:Velká Úpa, Austria-Hungary
Death Place:Redeyef, French protectorate of Tunisia

Rudolf Franz Lehnert (13 July 1878 – 16 January 1948) was an Austrian photographer. He was noted for producing Orientalist images.

Life

Lehnert was born in Gross Aupa in Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now Velká Úpa, part of Pec pod Sněžkou in the Czech Republic).[1]

He first travelled to Tunis in 1904, and in 1904 he again visited with his friend, and subsequent business partner, Ernst Heinrich Landrock. The pair established a photographic studio in Tunis and worked closely for more than 20 years. They later established studios in successively, Munich, Leipzig and Cairo, publishing the works as by "Lehnert & Landrock".

From the 1860s onwards, photographs of people with different cultural values and sexual morality became popular for artistic and erotic reasons. According to Pascal Baetens, they border on racism and ethnocentrism.[2]

Lehnert spent the last part of his life at Redeyef, Gafza Oasis, Tunisia, where he died.

See also

Notes and References

  1. Hannavy, J. (ed), Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, Routledge, 2013, p. 1032
  2. Baetens, Pascal (2007) Nude Photography, the art and the craft London: Doring Kindersley Limited, pp. 14-15