MANTZ, Werner

About the photographer, Werner MANTZ

Werner MANTZ was a German-Dutch photographer. "Today he is considered one of the most important photographers of the 20s and 30s, primarily because of his architectural photographs. The artistic value of his work is determined above all by the fact that, despite the terms of the commission, he has achieved an aesthetically high-quality interpretative achievement in combination with a refined light staging, which had an extraordinary advertising effect for the architect". (© Michael Euler-Schmidt)

From 1920 to 1921 Werner MANTZ studied photography in Munich. In 1921 he opened his first photo studio in his parents' apartment in Cologne. During the next few years he created portraits of Cologne celebrities and also photographs of people from politics, science and art. He was in contact with the Cologne group of progressive artists and made some photographic reproductions of artworks. In addition to his work as a portrait photographer, he became one of the most sought-after architectural photographers, working in the style of New Objectivity and New Building of the 1920s. As a commissioned photographer, he regarded photography as a craft and worked primarily for companies in Cologne. In 1926 he became the house photographer of the architect Wilhelm Riphahn. From 1937 to 1938, he worked mainly on two major commissions in the province of Limburg. After the Reich Pogrom Night in 1938, he left Cologne for good and moved to Maastricht. When the commissions for architectural photographs in Cologne and Maastricht failed to materialize, he devoted himself to children's photography.

Photo books by and about the work of Werner MANTZ

• '50 Jahre Leonhard Tietz. 1879 / 1929' (1929)
  'Architekturphotographie in Köln. 1926-1932' (1982)
  'Köln und seine Fotbücher: Fotografie in Köln, aus Köln, für Köln im Fotobuch von 1853bis 2010' (2010)
  'On Coal Mining in Limburg ('Werner Mantz in de Mijnstreek', 2015)
  'Gallery of Honor of Dutch Photography' (2020)