Hugo Erfurth

Hugo Erfurth, 1874-1948

Hugo Erfurth was one of the most significant portrait photographers of his time. In 1895 he began an apprenticeship under court photographer Wilhelm Hoffert, and in 1896 he took over the Schroder Studio in Dresden. In 1906 the photographer purchased the Luttichau Palace in Dresden, in which he installed a studio for “modern and artistic photographic pictures”, the so-called Erfurth imagery. Here he welcomed personalities from politics, business and the arts as his clients.

Erfurth cultivated a rather sober style of portraiture. He usually dispensed with characterizing or decorative settings, choosing instead to concentrate entirely on the face of the sitter.

In 1934 he moved to Cologne and opened a studio that was destroyed during the 1943 bombing raids on that city. After the war, the photographer retired to Gaienhofen on Lake Constance.

Information from 20^th Century Photography, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Taschen.