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• Fritz Henle: Observer and Photographer of People and Places

Women Smoking Cigars, 1960s

Fritz Henle was born on June 9, 1909 in Dortmund, Germany. Sometime around 1928 he took up photography.

Henle immigrated to New York City and the United States in 1936 and became a naturalized citizen in 1942. He was a founding member and trustee of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP). He worked as a photographer for Life magazine from 1937 to 1942. In 1936 the Cleveland Museum of Art gave him his first museum exhibition, "Photographs of India, taken by Fritz Henle". The same museum also gave him another one-man show in 1945, "Mexico: Photographs by Fritz Henle" (the museum ran another showing of his Mexican images in 1957 as well).

Henle was also a member of the New York Photo League and worked for the Farm Security Administration as a photographer.

Lights of Manhattan

Later in life he lived in Christiansted, Virgin Islands, but traveled extensively, including the U.S., Europe, Israel, India, Mexico, Japan and other locales.

He died on January 31, 1993 in Christiansted, Virgin Islands.

Information on Henle and images of his work has appeared in the June 1969 issue of Camera magazine, in the 1982 and 1995 editions of "Contemporary Photographers", in Honnef & Sachsse's book, "German Photography 1870-1970: Power of a Medium", in the International Center of Photography Encyclopedia of Photography, and in the Macmillan Biographical Encyclopedia of Photographic Artists & Innovators.

Henle's work was shown in some of the most influential photography exhibitions, including the New York Museum of Modern Art's "Photography: 1839-1937", curated by Beaumont Newhall; the 1938 First International Photographic Exposition of the Guild of Photographic Dealers; New York Museum of Modern Art's "Mexico: 8 Photographers"; the 1948 exhibition, "This Is the Photo League"; the Baltimore Museum of Art's 1949 one-man show, "Hawaii - Photographs by Fritz Henle" the George Eastman House's 1952 one-man show, "Fritz Henle"; the 1954 " Subjektive Fotografie" in Germany, curated by Otto Steinert,; the George Eastman House's "Photography At Mid-Century: 10th Anniversary Exhibition" in 1959; and Stern Magazine's 2nd World Exhibition of Photography: "Woman".

He is listed in the Auer & Auer and George Eastman House databases.

Henle's work is held in many institutional collections, including the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the Center for Creative Photography, the International Center of Photography, the George Eastman House, the San Antonio Museum Association, the Northlight Gallery, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Mystic Seaport Museum, the National Museum of American History, the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Louisville Photographic Archives, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Nimitz Library, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum Ludwig, the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.