Vienna Trifolium

An offshoot of the pictorialist Vienna Camera Club that had been founded (as the Club der Amateur-Photographen in Wien) in 1887. The Trifolium's members were Hugo Henneberg, the Innsbruck-based Heinrich Kühn, and Hans Watzek (1848-1903), and began to be designated as such in 1898. (They also started signing their work with a three-leaved clover.) Specializing in variants of the complex gum bichromate process, they travelled together to various European countries between 1897 and 1903 and cultivated relations with the Linked Ring in London, James Craig Annan in Glasgow, and Stieglitz in New York. They also exhibited with the Vienna Secession and published work in Ver Sacrum (Dec. 1902). The group's existence effectively ended with Watzek's death in May 1903. Although relatively short-lived, it was remarkable both for the quality of its members' work and for its range of international contacts.

— Robin Lenman

Bibliography

• Auer, A., “‘The Wiener Trifolium: Hans Watzek, Heinrich Kühn and Hugo Henneberg’”, in J. Lawson, R. McKenzie, and A. D. Morrison-Low (eds.), Photography 1900: The Edinburgh Symposium (1992)