Masters of Photography | Ernst Haas

Background

Ernst Haas was born in 1921 in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish father and an Austrian mother. He grew up fairly affluent due to his father being a high-ranking civil servant. His parents encouraged creativity and his dad loved music and was a keen photographer while his mother wrote poetry and was an aspiring artist. Between 1935 and 1938 Ernst attended a private school and focused his attention on Art, Literature, Poetry, Philosophy and Science.

Unfortunately, in 1938, Austria was invaded by Germany and the school was closed. He was subsequently sent to a German Labour Camp where he worked for up to six hours a day in exchange for two hours of study daily. In 1940 he studied to become a doctor but was forced out of medical school due to his Jewish ancestry after completing only a single year. According to his son, Alexander, Ernst later confessed that he was not a great medical student anyway.

Even though his father was a keen photographer, Ernst was more interested in painting and did not show an early interest in photography. He nevertheless mastered the medium just after he left medical school and also became fascinated by film making.

Early influences and Work

Ernst bought his first camera in 1946 at the age of 25 – a Rolleiflex that he traded on the black market for 20 pounds of margarine; he realised that photography might provide a means of support and open up opportunities to travel, which after painting was his other childhood passion.

Early on in his life Haas was influenced by Werner Bischof and realised that photography can simultaneously be a storytelling document and art. Subsequently, Ernst did a photo assignment, Homecoming, wherein he masterfully captured the happy and sad emotions of prisoners of war meeting their loved ones when disembarking from the train. Homecoming was published in both Heute and Life Magazine. The publication opened new doors and Ernst was asked by renowned war photographer, Robert Capa, to join Magnum Photos. Haas now became part of a small group of elite photographers like Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and the same Werner Bischof whose work influenced him so much. 

Being part of Magnum allowed Ernst to travel the world as he carried out his assignments. In 1950 he was appointed Magnum’s US Vice President and was given US citizenship.

Life after the war

Ernst Haas moved to New York in 1951, choosing to document its streets in rich colour. Saying he would have been “lazy” in Vienna, he described New York as “the city which makes you work and presses everything out of you …” For Haas New York was a real metropolis, a world within a world, a solution within a solution, growing, decaying. There was little that Haas found obvious in this city; its constant change going on day by day, forming, transforming, construction, destruction had a significant impact on his vision.