About the German photographer, Hans HELFRITZ (1902-1995)

Hans HELFRITZ was a composer, musicologist, writer as well as photographer. After an aborted apprenticeship, Hans HELRITZ began studying music & musicology in Berlin & Vienna. Inspired by his teacher Erich von Hornbostel, he traveled to Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Iraq in 1930. In 1935 he traveled to India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Republic of China and Singapore. Commissioned by UFA, he made films about Yemen and Mexico, circumventing the Nazi regime's directive to portray foreign peoples as culturally inferior. In 1939 Hans HELFRITZ, whose homosexuality and political stance had earned him the enmity of the Nazi state, fled first to Brazil and Bolivia before settling in Chile. As an official photographer, he took part in the Chilean Antarctic expedition. At the end of the 1940s he became a citizen of Chile. His photographic estate is housed in the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum of the City of Cologne.

Photographic travelogues by Hans HELFRITZ

'Vergessenes Südarabien' ('Forgotten South Arabia', 1936); 'Arabien: Die letzten Wunder der Wüste' ('Arabia. The Last Wonders of the Desert, 1944); 'Im Lande der Königin von Saba' (1952); 'Die Osterinsel' ('Easter Island', 1953); 'Marokko-Berberburgen und Königsstädte des Islam' ('Morocco-Berber Castles and Royal Cities of Islam', 1970); 'Entdeckungsreisen in Süd-Arabien. Auf unbekannten Wegen durch Hadramaut und Jemen (1933 und 1935)' (Voyages of Discovery in South Arabia. On Unknown Paths through Hadramaut and Yemen', 1977); 'Südamerika: Präkolumbianische Hochkultur und die Kunst der Kolonialzeit. Ein Reisebegleiter zu den Kunststätten in Kolumbien, Ekuador, Peru und Bolivien' ('South America: Pre-Columbian High Culture and the Art of the Colonial Period. A travel companion to the art sites in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia', 1988)


'Vergessenes Südarabien' (Forgotten South Arabia) by Hans HELFRITZ is above all enthnologically and historically interesting. It documents the way of life on the Arabian Peninsula in the early 1930s. The approximately 150 photos were taken with a Leica.
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