Harry Weber

An Inspired Teller of Stories Without Words: Harry WeberThe photographer Harry Weber is the subject of an extensive one man show that opens at the Palais Harrach on May 11, 2001. Over 180 black-and-white photographs will offer a comprehensive survey of 50 years of his creative work.

Harry Weber was born in Klosterneuburg near Vienna in 1921, and emigrated to the Palestine in 1938, where he served in the Jewish Brigade until 1946. After his return, he started to work for the magazine "Stern" in 1952 (1959 - 1974 photographer-in-chief of the Austrian edition). Numerous commissions from theatres (e.g. the Salzburg Festival). Numerous published books, e.g. "Wien bei Nacht" (Vienna by Night) and "Wien - Gesichter einer Stadt" (Vienna - Faces of a City), both published by Brandtstätter. "Die Anderen und Heute in Wien.Photographien zur jüdischen Geschichte" (The Others and Today in Vienna. Photographs Documenting Contemporary Jewish Life).Participated in numerous international exhibitions; one man shows at the Historisches Museum Vienna and at the Jewish Museum. Lives in Vienna.

"Learning by doing" has always been Harry Weber‘s motto in learning his trade - although he has long since acquired a stupendous degree of skill. His many years as a reporter and then as photographer-in-chief of the Austrian edition of the magazine "Stern" helped school his unique way of seeing people and the endlessly different situations in which they may suddenly find themselves. Harry Weber is motivated by his deep interest in people - people on the street as well as people on stage. He is, after all, a celebrated photographer of theatre performances: from the Salzburg Festival to the Viennese Theater in der Josefstadt to George Tabori‘s former Viennese theatre "Der Kreis".The ephemeral captured in grandiose pictures. In this way, Weber has always considered himself as a photographer concentrating on the medium‘s documetary facets. A book of carefully chosen photographs, published by Brandtstätter in celebration of this exhibition,documents the rich harvest from fifty years of photographic work - from its beginnings after the return of the emigrant to his time at "Stern" to his work for the theatre to his most recent work.