Felix Hans Man

(b Freiburg im Breisgau, 30 Nov 1893; d London, 30 Jan 1985). British photographer, writer and collector of German birth. He began to study fine art and art history in Munich and Berlin in 1912, but had to interrupt his studies in 1914 on the outbreak of World War I. While serving as an officer at the front he began to take photographs. He resumed his studies in 1918 and in 1926 moved to Berlin, where he worked as an illustrator. Soon he gave up drawing and concentrated on photography, adopting his professional name in 1929. Between 1929 and 1934 he worked for the M?nchner Illustrierte Presse and the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, for which he travelled all over Europe and North Africa and spent eight months in Canada.

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Man, Felix (Hans Felix Sigismund Bauman; 1893-1985), German photographer who made his reputation with the early illustrated photo magazines the Münchner and Berliner illustrirten. The Nazi seizure of power obliged him to leave for England in 1934. He joined Picture Post at its inception, and in 1938 became its chief photographer. He remained until the paper's demise in 1951, working for the last three years as its ‘colour specialist’. He travelled and photographed across the world, documenting nations at war, at work, and in repose. He was a master of non-studio portraiture, and his images of statesmen like Mussolini and Churchill brought him international fame.

— Amanda Hopkinson

Bibliography

• Kaufman, C. M., Felix H. Man: Sixty Years of Photography (1983)