by Adele R
Originally published in Currents June/July 2004

 

The father, Wilhelm Heins, owned a successful tree nursery and began photography in 1900 as a hobby, documenting the work of the nursery, his travels and family, along with experiments in the techniques of photography. The daughter, Hildi Schmidt Heins, studied photography at the Landeskunstschule (School for Fine Arts) in Hamburg and earned her living as a professional photographer until 1943. After the Second World War, she concentrated on drawing, painting and sculpture, leaving photography to become part of the repertoire of her twin daughters, Barbara and Gabriele Schmidt Heins, who have been concept artists since completing their studies at The University for Fine Arts in Hamburg in 1974. More than 250 works from the three talented generations can be seen in an unusual show at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum of Arts and Crafts) until mid-October.

Barbara and Gabriele Schmidt Heins have taken as their leitmotiv the theme Die Eigene Geschichte (The Individual or Personal Story). The phrase glows as a script sculpture along the train tracks in three locations between the Altona station and Harburg. The bright yellow, eleven-meter-long script tantalizes the mind as you whiz along in the train, and this leitmotiv has now come alive in the exhibition of the family art at the museum.

Wilhelm Heins took pictures of his nursery catching the geometry of the fields and the elegant movements of workers in a line on the land. He portrayed Russian peasants and workers in 1914 on a trip, captured his family and experimented with motion studies. He purchased the best equipment available, giving his daughter one of the first Lexica cameras and, of course, developed his own work. His granddaughters have vivid memories of their grandfather wafting the perfume of those darkroom chemicals which seemed an integral part of his persona.

His daughter, Hildi, took wonderful pictures of the family and of the members of the Art School, including some famous artists and photographers of the time. She also did architectural photography and other commercial work on commission.

Barbara and Gabriele Schmidt Heins have moved to a different level altogether. Their photographs are composites, sometimes original pictures, sometimes taken from existing photographs, cut or edited and with script superimposed. Direct or oblique, the words, relating to the pictures or not, tease the mind and give the photographs entirely new meaning.

I found the exhibition fascinating and well worth a visit. And don’t miss having a bite at the Distiller, the best food for the lowest price on the museum circuit.

Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum of Arts and Crafts), Steintorplatz, www.mkg-hamburg.de