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[Women from Pustertal]

Creator

Austrian Photographer · 1866–1944

Artist

The grandson of a sculptor, Heinrich Kühn studied painting and music and, after a brief military stint, medicine and natural science. From this training he turned to microscopic photography, but around 1890, after continued experiments with this procedure, he gave up medicine entirely and devoted himself solely to photography. After seeing work by members of the British Linked Ring society of phot

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Date: about 1913–1914
Medium: Bromoil transfer print
Culture: Austrian
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

As three women made their way across a sun-dappled meadow, Heinrich Kühn made this image from above and behind, combining a modernist's bird's-eye viewpoint with a Pictorialist visual sense. The bromoil transfer process transformed the print into a grainy, atmospheric image reminiscent of a drawing. The anonymous, faceless figures are reduced to masses of light and dark that seem to float across the composition. "The greatest achievement of the photographer is to aim at great pictorial effect without adulteration. The photographer may not paint," Kühn wrote to Alfred Stieglitz. In this image he adhered to his own admonition, successfully combining perspective and printing technique to render this pastoral scene.

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