Steinert, Otto

Otto Steinert, (born July 12, 1915, Saarbrücken, Germany—died March 3, 1978, Essen-Werden, West Germany [now Germany]), German photographer, teacher, and physician, who was the founder of the Fotoform movement of postwar German photographers.

Steinert studied medicine at various universities from 1934 to 1939 and was a medical officer during World War II. He abandoned medicine for photography about 1947, when he became a portrait photographer. He was best known as the founder, in 1949, and intellectual mentor of the Fotoform group of photographers, whose innovative images he displayed at the Photokina exhibition in Cologne in 1950. The photographers in the group created mostly abstract images, often derived from close-up views of patterns from nature or from manipulating negatives and prints. Steinert mounted three more highly influential photographic exhibitions (each called “Subjektive Fotografie”), in 1951, 1954, and 1958, which showcased the entire spectrum of West German photography since World War II, with an emphasis on abstraction. Photographers including László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray were included in the 1951 show.

Steinert abandoned Fotoform in the late 1950s, but he continued to be an influential figure among photographers as a teacher. He taught and eventually became the director of the Staatliche Werkkunstschule, where he worked from 1952 until his death. During this period he also acted as director of the Folkswangschule in Essen.