Hans Watzek (Austrian, 1848–1903)

b. 1848 — d. 1903

Hans Watzek Austrian, 1848-1903 Born Johann Josef Watzek in Bohemia, Hans Watzek was a pictorial photographer specializing in gum bichromate prints. After studying at art academies in Leipzig and Munich, Watzek became a professor of drawing in 1874. He joined the Vienna Camera Club in 1891 and two years later was elected to membership in the Linked Ring. Around 1894 Watzek befriended fellow Austrian pictorialists Hugo Henneberg and Heinrich Kuehn, and they began working closely. The group traveled, photographed, and exhibited together, becoming known as the Trifolium (Das Kleeblatt). Experimenting with the gum bichromate process, the three began making large-scale prints, often producing images measuring 2 x 3 feet. Watzek, the most innovative member of the group, built his own camera and wrote technical articles for the magazine Wiener Photographische Blätter. After his death, Watzek's work was reproduced in Camera Work (January 1906) and was exhibited by Alfred Stieglitz in his New York City gallery as well as in the 1910 International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography in Buffalo. M.M.