Fritz Henle

Fritz Henle - Early enthusiasm for photography; emigration to New York

Fritz Henle was born on 9th June 1909 in Dortmund, where his father Adolf Henle worked as a senior surgeon in the city's hospitals. Although he spent most of his youth in Dortmund, he also went to school in Heidelberg for a few years. Henle was interested in photography from an early age and even before he had left school, had bought a camera and taught himself the basics of photography in his improvised darkroom located directly below his parents' music room. By 1930 he was ready to attend the Bavarian State School of Photography and completed a two-year training programme under Hanna Seewald to become a photographer. Photography and ‘wanderlust’ went hand in hand for Henle, so he seized the opportunity to work as a photography assistant in Florence. He then travelled to India, China and Japan from 1934 to 1936 for the shipping company Lloyd Triestino (renamed Italia Marittima on 1st March 2006). From a family of Jewish origin with the fear of reprisals in National Socialist Germany, Henle finally emigrated to the USA in 1936 and settled in New York. 

Title pages, nudes, portraits and travel impressions 

During the Second World War, Fritz Henle, who became an American citizen in 1942, worked for several American magazines, including such illustrious names as Fortune, Mademoiselle, Harper's Bazaar and Life. He contributed five cover photos to Life magazine and also worked for the United States Office of War Information. In addition to his extensive and successful work as a portrait and nude photographer, Henle always saw himself primarily as a travel photographer who documented his joy in collecting new experiences and his interest in foreign cultures. Whatever he photographed, his camera of choice was always the Rolleiflex, the peculiarities of which he was able to utilise with elegance and sophistication for his artistic purposes. His photograph New York at Night, for which he turned his camera round and round during a deliberately long exposure, became famous. The result is a swirl of light in the middle of the darkness of the night, the circular shape of which contrasts attractively with the typical square format of the Rolleiflex.

Lasting connection to Heidelberg; second home in the Caribbean

Although Fritz Henle had not spent the majority of his life in Germany and felt most at home when travelling and exploring, he had a special affection for Heidelberg, the place of his youth. For this reason, he often returned there, even into old age, when he stayed in Bad Mergentheim for his regular spa visits. He found his second home, however, in the Caribbean, on the island of Saint Croix, where he lived from 1948 and designed numerous illustrated books, most of which were based on motifs from his new homeland. The historian Helmut Gernsheim honoured Henle as the “last classic freelance photographer”. 

Fritz Henle died in San Juan in Puerto Rico on 31st January 1993.