Alfred Lichtwark

Lichtwark, Alfred (1852-1914), German art historian, writer, and director of the Hamburg Kunsthalle from 1886 to 1914. A key figure in the emerging field of museum and art education, he regarded amateur cultural pursuits, including photography, as a major positive influence on public taste. In portraiture especially, he believed that amateur photographers could break away from the unnatural and manipulated studio stereotypes imposed by commercial pressures. With his friend Ernst Juhl, he promoted pictorialism in Hamburg, opened the Kunsthalle to a series of photographic salons between 1893 and 1903, and published lectures on amateur photography (Die Bedeutung der Amateur-Photographie, 1894). Although Lichtwark's airier notions of art as an antidote to social conflict now seem dated, his belief in the value of amateur creativity in mass society continues to appeal.

— Robin Lenman

Bibliography

• Kempe, F., Vor der Camera: Zur Geschichte der Photographie in Hamburg (1976)