Staatliche Fachakademie für Fotodesign München

The Staatliche Fachakademie für Fotodesign München (The State Academy for Photo Design, Munich) was an independent training facility for photography and photo design in Munich with several predecessor institutions. It was incorporated into the Munich University of Applied Sciences in 2002.

History

The training facility was founded as an initiative of the South German Photographers Association ('Süddeutschen Photographen-Vereins') on October 15, 1900 in Rennbahnstrasse, near Munich's Theresienwiese, as the "Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt für Photographie” (“Teaching and Research Institute for Photography”), a Bavarian State Government Subsidised Educational Institution.

Munich became a cultural centre of Europe over the period of its establishment under the regency of Luitpold who during the Prinzregentenjahre ("The Prince Regent Years" or the Prinzregentenzeit) oversaw a flowering of artistic and cultural activity in Bavaria which prospered under a liberal government and which attracted creative artists in all fields from across Europe. Thomas Mann in his novella about this period Gladius Dei, exclaimed that "München leuchtete" (literally; "Munich shone").

The founder was photographic supplies dealer Georg Heinrich Emmerich (1870–1923), a keen advocate for, and amateur exhibitor of, Pictorialism, and frequent contributor to photography magazines, including Allgemeine Photographen-Zeitung. Zeitschrift für Künstlerische Fach-Photographie ('German Photography Magazine: Journal for Artistic Photography) from 1892, and author of photography books from 1904. He was its first director until 1919. He announced his intention that the school should offer;

"not mechanically learned soulless technique that left the stamp of artistic insignificance on the earlier products of professional photography, but rather expressing the individual capture of characteristic moments and one's own feelings in photographic works, recognising these principles that are indispensable for artistic creation in every single student: that is the task that the management primarily strives to carry out.”

The curriculum was broad, and included not only “practical photography with negative and positive processes”, retouching and reproduction technology, but also drawing, compositional theory, vignette painting, physics, art and photography history, alongside commercial bookkeeping.

Emmerich's son Walter E. Lautenbacher studied at the college from 1947 to 1949 and founded the Bund Freischaffender Fotodesigner (BFF) ('Association of Freelance Photo Designers') in 1969. Professor Hans Spörl succeeded Emmerich and Professor W. Urban taught photochemistry.

In 1904 the institution was expanded with a graphic arts department and renamed the "Teaching and Research Institute for Photography, Chemography, Collotype and Engraving".

By 1905 it was accepting women into its photography courses, though enrolments from both genders were subject to quotas.

Pictorialism

In 1907 Emmerich appointed another Pictorialist, the renowned American-born Frank Eugene, member of The Linked Ring and founder of the Photo-Secession, as a lecturer in 'Artistic Photography' until 1913, who during his tenure experimented with Autochromes.

Photo Design

In 1909 the school was given free occupation of a former hospital building, which was opened in May, 1911. After WW1 the government took over the school on July 1, 1921 and a department was added for the teaching of motion picture technique under Professor Konrad Wolter. By 1924, facilities for photoengraving and collotype were no linger being financially supported by photoengravers and lithographers of Munich and discontinued and the rooms taken over by the motion picture department.

In 1928 the institution was nationalised as the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Lichtbildwesen ('Bavarian Government Institute for Photographic Procedure') and from 1954 became the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Photographie ("Bavarian State Institute for Photography") before, in 1990, the name was again changed, to Staatliche Fachakademie für Fotodesign (“State Academy for Photo Design”).

Entrance sign indicating the Fotodesign department at FH-München

University integration and demotion to a course

In 2002, the specialist academy was incorporated as a "Photo Design" course into Faculty 12 "Design" at the Munich University of Applied Sciences (FHM) and two years later the last 30 graduates emerged from Clemensstrasse 33.

"Photo design" is now a course of study in the Faculty of Design at Munich University of Applied Sciences, which since 2019 has been based in the historic aristocratic armory at Lothstrasse 17.

Notable graduates and associates:

• G. H. Emmerich (1900–1917), founder and director
• Wanda von Debschitz-Kunowski (1900–1902)
• František Drtikol (1901–1903)
• Elfriede Reichelt (1906 - 1908)
• Frank Eugene (1907–1913)
• Germaine Krull (1915-1917)
• Wilhelm Castelli (1921-1923)
• Lotte Jacobi (1925-1927)
• Huss Flöter, 1928.
• Johannes Felbermeyer (1926–1928)
• Hedda Morrison (1929-1990)
• Willy Zielke (lecturer)
• Dieter Hinrichs (teacher)
• Use Schneider-Lengyel
• Otti Zacharias (1930–1931)
• Helmut Gernsheim (1934–1936)
• Wolfgang Reisewitz (1948–1949)
• Peter Keetman (1935–1937 & 1947 -?) <ref>
• Walter E. Lautenbacher (1947–1949)
• Floris Michael Neusüss (1958–1960)
• Christoph von Wangenheim (1962–1964)
• Etienne C.I. van Sloun (1964–1966)
• Petra Gerschner (1982–1984)
• Juergen Teller (1984–1986)
• Martin Fengel (1986–1988)
• Jörg Koopmann (1990–1993)
• Thomas Dreier (1994-1999)

Bibliography

• Jahrbuch der Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt für Photographie, Chemigraphie, Lichtdruck und Gravüre zu München., 1907–1916 / RHK 04394; BSBM Sign. 4 Bav. 1010u (je 900 Aufl.)
• Pohlmann, Ulrich; Scheutle, Rudolf; Münchner Stadtmuseum. Fotomuseum (2000), Lehrjahre, Lichtjahre : die Münchner Fotoschule 1900-2000, Schirmer/Mosel, ISBN 978-3-88814-943-6