User:SofiaJK111998/Hein Gorny

Hein Gorny (* 21. April 1904 in Witten; † 14. June 1967 in Hanover, Germany) was a German photographer who worked, in the spirit of the New Objectivity, in the areas of advertising, portrait, animal, object, industrial and experimental photography.

Biography
In 1922 Hein Gorny moved to Hanover after aborting his apprenticeship as a carpenter. There he was in touch with the "Kröpcke-Kreis" and had the opportunity to meet Hanns Krenz the director of the Kestnergesellschaft. Two years later during  a journey through Italy and Egypt  he took his first photographs. Thanks to Hanns Krenz's mediation these photographs were published in the Hannoverschen Anzeiger. 1925 Hein Gorny portrayed the well-known philosopher Theodor Lessing in Hanover. During this meeting he also met his daughter Ruth Lessing. Who became his future wife. A further significant meeting was in 1927 when Hein Gorny got to know Albert Renger-Patzsch. In this period the photographer was preparing an exhibition for the Kestnergesellschaft. Hein Gorny was self-taught when he started working as a photographer and obtained his first commissions. He opened his own photo studio and established contacts with the intellectual circle of Hanover. One year later he was travelling with Erich Ohser and Erich Kästner to Leningrad and Moscow.

Hein Gorny moved to Berlin with Ruth Lessing in 1931. They got married one year later. Theodor Lessing, Gornys father-in-law was assassinated in Marienbad 1933. Further to this event Hein Gorny tried to obtain a work permit in Paris without success. Thanks to an introduction he worked during the winter months for the cultural department of St Moritz. In the meantime he went back to Hanover for several reportages and advertising jobs for example commissions by Bahlsen, Pelikan and Feldmühle. 1935 Hein Gorny and his wife moved to Lindenallee 4 in Berlin and in the same year their son Peter Hanns was born. Together with the photographer Karl Theodor Gremmler he took over Lotte Jacobi's studio, Kurfürstendamm 35, after she emigrated to the USA. Ruth Gorny administrated the archive and executed photographic laboratory works. Hein Gorny is appointed as a member of the Society of German Art Photographers (Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner) and will be a member between 1936 and 1938.

In 1938 a publication in the magazine Das Schwarze Korps using a photograph by Hein Gorny triggered a denunciation. The Reichpressekammer demanded him to divorce his Jewish wife, which he refused to do. Funded by the publishing house Bruckmann-Verlag he went to New York where he tried to begin a new life while his wife was preparing the departure and selling the studio. However the plan to immigrate to the USA was no't successful because Ruth did not receive a residence permit. Back in 1939 in Germany he worked in the reacquired photo studio. His daughter Katrin Barbara was born this year.

1941 Hein Gorny was classified as "unworthy to serve the military" because of his marriage to a Jewish woman. However he managed to continue working as a photographer, despite restriction. His friend Werner Kube, who worked for the Bruckman-Verlag was instrumental in Gorny being hired to do a book on mountain infantrymen in 1942. This assignment resulted in his being released from mandatory Labor Service. 1943 a bomb hit the house in Kurfürstendamm 35. His photo studio wasn't directly damaged but the water used to extinguish the fire destroyed a part of the negative-archive. In 1944 the family house was destroyed. In January 1945 Hein Gorny divorced Ruth and married his studio assistant Bayerle. In April of the same year he moved with his new wife to Caputh, where on the 25th of April he was arrested by the Sowjet troops as a civil prisoner. He was liberated mid of May and decided to go back to Berlin. He divorced Bayerle and in autumn he remarried Ruth but in 1946 they divorced again.

During the following years the worked in art trade and for a brief period he was a copartner of a commercial photo studio in Kassel. Because of an illness that he contracted during the war he went in 1957 to a clinic in Ilten. There he pursued a few photographic activities but could not complete any new project. Further to a  fire in his apartment Hein Gorny was severely injured and died on the 14th of June 1967.