Richard Stern,Traces left behind.

Foreword book

I have always had the feeling that our father experienced life through the eye of the camera. If he hadn’t his camera on him, he seemed to watch the world through a fictional lens, formed by his thumb and forefinger. He was sparing with film and would take just one photograph. Incredibly patient while waiting to catch the right exposure, he made excursions enervating for us when he stopped for the umpteenth time to wait for a cloud to move. He got five daughters (photo cover) and treated the family often to slide shows: pictures he made on his many travels, especially of nature and landscapes. Most of his black and white photographs we got to know only after his death. As far as those pictures had been organized, they were classified according to the countries where they were taken. The pictures in this book were taken primarily in the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, London, Paris and Italy somewhere between 1950 and 1960. I think Richard's pictures of people are so intriguing because often they tell a story. For example, the couple reading a letter. It makes you fantasize about who was the writer of the letter, what was in the letter, what is the relationship between the reader and the writer. But also the open, sweet and unsophisicated look of the people in his pictures.
Miriam Stern

Richard Stern was born in Charlottenburg, part of Berlin, in 1910. He attended grammar school and there he developed a great sense for language as well as a gift for visual obeservation, which showed in his talent for drawing. While growing up in the Weimar-republic era he became poltitically aware and active as a studentleader. He received his first camera at a young age , a Voigtlӓnder and by and by he exchanged his drawing for photography. Later he replaced this camera with a Leica. He fled to The Netherlands in 1933, where he survived the war, mainly by being maried to his non jewish wife.

His parents fate was dramatic . They died at Bergen Belsen. Their children had more luck: Richard's sisters and brothers survived the war. During the war he hid the Leica well; it could cause him plenty of trouble. When he lost his Leica on one of his trips, he switched to Nikon-cameras and used them ever since. When the war was over, he had a troublesome start, being a stateless inhabitant of the Netherlands with a German background. Besides, he eventually had five children for whom he had to provide. This is why his photography existed besides his firm in leathergoods which he had started before the war in a Holland that was not yet occupied.

Richard didn’t do the developing and printing himself. His photos were shown worldwide at exhibitions and he won numerous prizes. His pictures were published in magazines; he produced postcards and a calendar on the Rocky-mountains.

It is a pity he couldn't be at the opening of his exhibition on Judaica in Berlin. He died just before this took place in 1994. His legacy, the archives with pictures, his autobiography, publications, old cameras and war documents, has found a place partly at the Jewish Museum of Berlin, and partly at the Exile Archive in Frankfurt.

Tamar Stern

Richard Stern,Traces left behind.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

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