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Monkmeyer Photo Service

  • The Monkmeyer Photo Service photo agency was founded around 1935/36 by the German émigrés Hilde and Paul August Monkmeyer in New York City.
  • Monkmeyer Photo Service

  • Monkemeyer, Monkmayer

  • Photo Agency

  • The Monkmeyer Photo Service photo agency was founded around 1935/36 by the German émigrés Hilde and Paul August Monkmeyer in New York City.

    Word Count: 23

  • Paul August (1882, Hanover–1975, New York) and Hilde Monkemeyer (born Neumann) (1907, Berlin–2001, New York) were both born in Germany. In 1932, after finishing her doctorate in Berlin, probably in economics with the title Probleme der freien oder gebundenen getreidewirtschaft, insbesondere in Deutschland, Hilde Monkemeyer worked as a journalist in Berlin. No more information on her life, or that of her husband Paul August Monkmeyer, is available.

    As Jews, it is presumed that they emigrated to New York in the mid-1930s and, in 1935/36, founded the Monkmeyer Photo Service photo agency. The agency was located on 225 Fifth Avenue, not exactly in Midtown Manhattan like other émigré photo agencies like Black Star, PIX, Rapho Guillumette, European Picture Service, Camera Features and Three Lions, but in central Manhattan nonetheless.

    Almost no information on the agency's specialisation or how it was run exists today. However, in Minicam magazine, issue October 1941, Monkemeyer was listed among agencies and photo service suppliers providing colour photo services in New York. Attached was the following description: the agency “buys 4x5’’ and larger Kodachromes of girls and children, paying $35.00 and up per shot. Does not want landscape and still-lifes” (Bailey 1941, 22). Black Star agency was described as specialising in “action shots of pretty girls, children and sports” (Bailey 1941, 22), PIX photo agency as being interested in “picture stories and shots of famous places in the United States”, while European Picture Service was described as offering a “good market for color pictures of babies and girls, preferably beach and outdoor shots for cover use” (Bailey 1941, 22).

    Little research has been done on which photographers were commissioned by Monkmeyer. Reportages by the German émigré photographers Carola Gregor and Fritz Henle were credited with Monkmeyer. Other photo agencies founded by émigrés such as Black Star, PIX, Rapho Guillumette, European Picture Service, Camera Features and Three Lions acted as a network between émigré photographers and the American and worldwide magazine and photo publishing market, so it can be assumed that other émigrés as well as American photographers worked for Monkmeyer. During the 1950s the American photographers Nancy Campbell Hays, Roy Pinney and Georgia Engelhardt, as well as the German photographer Carl Strüwe, were represented by the agency. Monkmeyer existed until 2000 and acted within a worldwide network.

    Word Count: 370

  • 225 Fifth Avenue, New York City (1935–1960s); 15 East 48th Street, New York City (1960s/1970s).

  • Logo of Monkmeyer Photo Services (Photo: Helene Roth)

  • [url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/21/classified/paid-notice-deaths-monkmeyer-hilde-ruth.html ]Anonymous. "Paid Notice: Deaths Monkmeyer, Hilde Ruth.“ The New York Times, 21. Februar 2001[/url]. Accessed 03 March.2022.

    Ahlers, Arvel W. Where & how to sell your pictures. Photography Publishing Corp., 1953.

    Bailey, Philip H. “How to sell … Color.” Minicam, October 1941, pp. 20–22.

    Kornfeld, Phoebe. Passionate Publishers. The Founders of the Black Star Photo Agency. University of Missouri Press, 2021.

    Word Count: 62

  • Helene Roth
  • 1935
  • 2000

  • Carola Gregor, Fritz Henle, Nancy Campbell Hays, Roy Pinney, Georgia Engelhardt, Carl Strüwe.

  • New York
  • No
  • Helene Roth. "Monkmeyer Photo Service." METROMOD Archive, 2021, https://archive.metromod.net/viewer.p/69/2948/object/5145-11021891, last modified: 04-03-2022.
  • Carola Gregor
    PhotographerSculptor
    New York

    The German émigré photographer Carola Gregor was an animal and child photographer and published some of her work in magazines and books. Today her work and life are almost forgotten.

    Word Count: 30

    Black Star Agency
    Photo Agency
    New York

    The German émigrés Kurt S(z)afranski, Ern(e)st Mayer and Kurt Kornfeld founded Black Star in 1936. The photo agency established was a well-run networking institution in New York.

    Word Count: 31

    PIX Publishing Inc.
    Photo Agency
    New York

    PIX Publishing Inc. was a photo agency founded in New York in 1935 by photo agent Leon Daniel and Celia Kutschuk, together with German émigré photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt and George Karger.

    Word Count: 30

    Rapho Guillumette
    Photo Agency
    New York

    Founded in 1940 by the emigrant Charles Rado (1899–1970), Rapho Guillumette was a picture agency.

    Word Count: 13

    Three Lions Inc.
    Photo Agency
    New York

    Little is known about this photo agency, which was founded by two German émigré brothers, Max Georg and Walter Löwenherz in 1937 in New York

    Word Count: 25

    Camera Features
    Photo Agency
    New York

    Camera Features was a photo agency founded by the photographer Werner Wolff and other colleagues of the photo agency PIX.

    Word Count: 20

    European Picture Service
    Photo Agency
    New York

    The European Picture Service was a photo agency located in Midtown Manhattan founded, probably in 1930, by the émigré photographer Max Peter Haas (1901–1985).

    Word Count: 22

    Fritz Henle
    Photographer
    New York

    Fritz Henle was a German Jewish photographer who emigrated in 1936 to New York, where he worked as a photojournalist for various magazines. He also published several photobooks of his travels throughout North America and Asia.

    Word Count: 35