Gallery
BIoGRAPHY
Erich Hartmann was born in Munich in 1922. In 1938, aged sixteen, he fled Nazi Germany with his family and settled in Albany, New York. The only English speaker in the family, he worked in a textile mill while attending evening high school and, later, night courses at Siena College.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army when America entered the Second World War. He trained in Virginia and at Ohio State University, served in England, took part in the Normandy invasion and fought across Europe. At the war’s end, he worked as a court interpreter at the Nazi trials in Cologne.
In 1946, he moved to New York City, working first as a portrait photographer’s assistant and then as a freelancer. His portrait subjects included Walter Gropius, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Koestler, Rachel Carson, Marcel Marceau and Gidon Kremer.
Hartmann joined Magnum Photos in 1952. He sat on its board of directors from 1967 to 1986 and was president in 1985-86.
He became known to a wide public through his photo essays for Fortune in the 1950s, including “Shapes of Sound,” “The Building of the Saint Lawrence Seaway” and “The Deep North.” They showed a poetic approach to science, industry and architecture, which he continued in essays for Geo and other magazines.
He travelled widely, combining editorial work on art, travel, architecture, music, science and industry for publications in the United States, Europe and Japan with annual reports for companies such as IBM, Boeing, RCA, Ford, Citroën, Citicorp, Schlumberger and the European Space Research Organization. During the Vietnam War, he went to Saigon with the Fellowship of Reconciliation to meet South Vietnamese peace activists.
He lectured at the Summer Academy in Salzburg and taught at Syracuse University, the University of Maryland and New York University. He also took part in many photography symposia and workshops in the U.S. and Europe. His awards include the Photokina Award (Cologne), the CRAF International Award (Italy), the Newhouse Citation in Photography and several Art Directors’ Club medals.
Hartmann was above all interested in how people relate to nature and to the environments they build. He documented industry and high technology, including glassmaking, aviation, agriculture, scientific research, space exploration and construction. He also photographed cultural and geographic settings such as Shakespeare’s England, James Joyce’s Dublin, Thomas Mann’s Venice, a U.S. presidential election, train travel across Europe and musicians at work.
His personal projects reflect a fascination with the beauty of technology, from ink drops in water to laser light and precision-made components. His most penetrating work explores the emptiness within the human-made world: a mannequin factory full of lifeless yet suffering faces, the alienation of modern work, and the silent remains of the Nazi concentration camps.
Hartmann was married to Ruth Bains for 52 years. He died in New York in 1999 and she passed away in 2025. They are survived by their son Nicholas, their daughter Celia, and granddaughters Emily and Alice Garfield.
The estate of Erich Hartmann is represented exclusively by °CLAIRbyKahn.
Selected solo exhibitions
2026 Paris Photo, °CLAIRbyKahn, Paris (forthcoming)
2023-24 Our Daily Bread, Carl-Schurz-Haus, Freiburg
2019 Erich Hartmann, The Poetry of Daily Life, Carl Schurz, Freiburg
2018 Erich Hartmann, Photo Basel in situ, Heuberg 24, Basel
2016 A Certain Slant of Light, °CLAIRbyKahn, Munich
2015 Our Daily Bread, Landesmuseum, Zürich
2013–14 Our Daily Bread, Französischer Dom am Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin
2012 The Abstract Art of Erich Hartmann, °CLAIRbyKahn, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France
2012 View York–Nine Perceptions, CSH Freiburg, Germany
2011 View York–Nine Perceptions, DAI Tübingen, Germany; °CLAIRbyKahn, Munich
2009 Erich Hartmann, °CLAIRbyKahn, Munich
2008 A Place in Maine, Magnum Gallery, Paris
2008 Music-Makers, United World College of the Adriatic, Duino, Italy
2007 Mannequin Factory, Ikona Gallery, Venice
2006 Writing with Light, Atlas Gallery, London
2005 Writing with Light, Artefact Gallery, Zurich
2005 Dublin 1964, Robinson Gallery Memphis, Tennessee
2004 Dublin 1964, Gallery of Photography, Dublin
2004 A 1960 Transatlantic Crossing on RMS Queen Elizabeth, South Street Seaport Museum, New York
2000-2002 Where I Was
Fotohof Salzburg, Austria
Leica Gallery, New York
Sankt Anna Kapelle, Passau, Germany
Jewish Museum, Munich
Leica Gallery, Tokyo
1995-2008 In the Camps
Arc de Triomphe, Paris
Goethe House, New York
Leica Gallery, New York
NGBK Gallery, Berlin
Kunsthaus, Hamburg
St. Anna Kapelle, Passau, Germany
National Monument, Camp Vught, Netherlands
Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
Villa Cian, Spilimbergo, Italy
Sala San Leonardo, Venice
Lucca Festival
Villa Manin, Italy
1991 High Technology, Berlin; Bonn; other venues in Europe
1989 Musicians at Work, Lockenhaus Music Festival, Austria
1988 Veritas, Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York
1987 Washington, Magnum Gallery, Paris
1985 The Heart of Technology, Paris; Amsterdam; Hamburg; Tokyo
1984 Erich Hartmann Slept Here, Residenz Gallery, Salzburg
1983 Macroworld, Olympus Galleries in Paris, Hamburg, Tokyo, London
1982 Train Journey, New York; Paris; Tokyo; Hamburg and other venues in the U.S.
1982 Europe in Space, Photographers’ Gallery London; Paris
1978 A Play of Light, Neikrug Gallery, New York
1977 Photographs with a Laser, AIGA Gallery, New York; Fiolet Gallery, Amsterdam
1976 Carnet de Route & Natures Mortes, Photogalerie, Paris
1971 Mannequin Factory, Underground Gallery, New York; Fiolet Gallery Amsterdam; Paris
1962 Our Daily Bread, The Coliseum, New York; Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, and other venues
1956 Sunday with the Bridge, Museum of the City of New York, Brooklyn Museum
selected group exhibitions
2025 Polaroids, Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin
2024 Paris Photo, group presentation by °CLAIRbyKahn, Paris
2023 Documenting Israel: Visions of 75 Years, Museum of Tolerance, Jerusalem
2022 Magnum Photos: The Misfits, Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin
2020 Open for Business: Magnum Photographers on Commission, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Eschborn, Germany
2019–20 Magnum Analog Recovery, Fotografie-Forum der StädteRegion Aachen, Monschau, Germany
2019–20 View of Ireland: Collecting Photography, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
2017 Early Magnum: On & In New York, National Arts Club, New York
2015 The Violet Crab at DRAF, The Roberts Institute of Art, London
2010 Unbelichtet / Unexposed: Munich Photographers in Exile, Jewish Museum Munich
2010 Early Magnum, Magnum London
2009 Tel Aviv through the Lens of a Magnum Photographer, Magnum London
2008 Magnum: Trans-Territories, Biennale Internationale de la Photographie / Fotofestival Mannheim–Ludwigshafen–Heidelberg
2006 Happy Birthday Marilyn, Atlas Gallery, London
2004 Security, Privilege and Freedom: A Transatlantic Crossing on Queen Elizabeth, South Street Seaport Museum, New York
2004 The New York Subway: A Centennial Celebration, Grand Central Terminal, New York
1973 The Responsible Eye: Three Decades of the Photograph as Document (1930–1960), OPTICA, Montreal
1964 Art in a Changing World: 1884–1964, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
1960–61 Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
1960 Photographs for Collectors, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
1959 Photography at Mid-Century, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York
1955 Subjektive Fotografie 2, Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Handwerk, Saarbrücken, Germany
PUBLICATIONS
2013 Our Daily Bread, Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
2011 View York–Nine Perceptions, Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld
2000 Where I Was, Otto Müller Verlag, Austria
1995 In The Camps, W.W. Norton Company, USA; also published in England, France, Germany and Italy
1972 Au Clair de la Terre, European Space Research Organization and Arcade (published in U.S. as Space Focus Earth)
1965 About OXO, Spectator Publications, USA
collections
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York
Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Centre Pompidou / Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
Allentown Art Museum, Pennsylvania
ICP, New York
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
The Museum of the City of New York
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
