Otto Umbehr

Umbo, born Otto Umbehr (January 18, 1902 – May 13, 1980), was a German photographer.

Biography

He was born in Dusseldorf and is known for his photo journalism as well as artworks.^[1] Otto was the second of six children of industrial architect Karl Friedrich Umbehr. His mother Frieda died when he was a young boy. He was trained in Duisburg, Aachen and Düsseldorf. In 1921 he studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar where he became acquainted with Johannes Itten, Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Citroen, Wassily Kandinsky and Eva Besnyö. He was influenced by László Moholy-Nagy, one of the most important photographers of the Bauhaus.

With Paul's help, Otto Umbehr took on the artist name of Umbo and started a photo studio in 1926 and he made photo collages as a camera assistant for the 1927 film by Walter Ruttmann called Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis.^[2] In 1928 he became one of the founding members of the agency Dephot (Deutscher Photo Service GmbH) where he was friends with Felix H. Man and Robert Capa.^[2] The agency was closed by the Nazis in 1933. During the Nazi period Umbo worked as a photojournalist, but in 1943 his photo archives in Berlin with between 50,000 and 60,000 negatives were destroyed in a bombing raid. Only a few of his works from that period have survived.

After the war Umbo returned to Hanover with his wife, the graphic designer Imgard Wanders, and their daughter. He lost his left eye, but that did not prevent him from continuing his art. He is known for photos of th ruins of postwar Hannover and he later taught photography at the School of Applied Arts there.

He died in Hannover.

References

• Otto Umbehr on website Weimar: Otto Umbehr