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Lilo Hess

  • The German émigré Lilo Hess was an animal photographer working for the Museum for Natural History and the Bronx Zoo, as well being a freelance photographer and publisher of children's books.
  • Lilo
  • Hess
  • Liselotte Hess

  • 17-02-1916
  • Erfurt (DE)
  • 14-12-2003
  • Bethlehem (US)
  • Photographer
  • The German émigré Lilo Hess was an animal photographer working for the Museum for Natural History and the Bronx Zoo, as well being a freelance photographer and publisher of children's books.

    Word Count: 31

  • Portrait of Lilo Hess (Commire 1973, p. 112).
  • The life and photographic work of Lilo Hess has been very little studied and therefore consists of only fragmentary information gleaned from magazine articles and other short entries in publications about book illustrators, as well as her own published books and an obituary. Life magazine described her as a “specialist in animal photography” (Life 1943, 21). During the 1940s, her images were reproduced in Life, U.S. Camera, Popular Photography and others. Some of them were assignments for the PIX Publishing agency.

    An illustration in Fotografische Rundschau in 1935 suggests that Hess's photographs were already being reproduced in magazines in Germany at this time. The photograph shows an African glutton poking its beak into the water at Berlin Zoo. The picture was taken with a Mentor camera equipped with a focal plane shutter, which allowed a very fast shutter speed and exposure time and thus enabled sharp images of fast movements. The picture was taken up close to the bird and at eye level, cutting out any reference to the zoo and giving the impression of a shot taken in the open air.

    Before her emigration to New York in 1938, Hess grew up with her sister Trude (who later became art historian and emigrated via Rome to the US in 1935) in a Jewish merchant family in Berlin, where she developed her interest in zoology and graduated in this field. She later studied (commercial) photography at the Photographic School in Berlin (perhaps the Lette Verein) and at the Polytechnic School in London. Combining her interest in zoology and photography, she developed as an animal photographer. In London she “met a commercial photographer who had been assigned to make a children’s book about zoo animals. Although an excellent photographer, he lacked the patience required to take animal pictures and asked me to do the book for him” (Commie 1973, 111). The identity of the photographer and the title of the book are unknown. But Julian Huxley, the secretary of the Zoological Society in London, is known to have given commissions to a circle of other émigré animal photographers, such as Wolf Suschitzky and Ylla, during the 1930s. Huxley was also responsible for opening the children’s zoo at London Zoo. In 1938, Ylla provided the image for Julian Huxley’s book Animal Language. Ylla, who emigrated in 1941 to New York, where she set up her own studio, also took photographs at Bronx Zoo and published animal-related material, thereby operating in the same field as Lilo Hess,  but it is not known whether they were acquainted with each other. Lilo Hess was not the only photographer who had his first exile stop in London. Other photographers who stayed for a time in London before emigrating to New York City were Trude Fleischmann, Ellen Auerbach, Tim Gidal as well as Henry Rox.

    Further evidence of Lilo Hess's involvement in the photographing of animals is her volunteering at the Museum for Natural History at the beginning of 1938 and the animal postcards and publicity pictures she produced in 1939 for the animal exhibitor and collector Frank Buck for his “Jungle Camp” show at the World’s Fair. Postcards and folders related to this show, however, contain no credits for Lilo Hess.

    During her lifetime, Hess published more the 40 books – mainly for children – which included her animal photos, as well as own illustrations and writings. Her first children's book was Odd Pets (Crowell, 1951), following in 1954 with Cristine de baby chimpansee (G. Bell and Sons, 1954).
    In the 1950s, she also participated in the Color Photography exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (9 May – 4 July, 1950). It was one of the first colour photography exhibitions to be put on by Edward Steichen, the director of the Photographic Collection of MoMa. Other emigrated photographers who participated were: Erwin Blumenfeld, Josef Breitenbach, Fred Block, Andreas Feininger, Arthur Felling (Weegee), Fritz Goro (the husband of Carola Gregor), Herbert Gehr, Fritz Henle, Horst P. Horst, George Karger, Dimitri Kessel and Lisa Larsen, alongside their American colleagues Eliot Porter, Richard Avedon and many more.

    Lilo Hess was married to Christopher William Coates, the director of the New York Aquarium, at Coney Island. Since 1964 they had been living on a 45‐acre farm in East Stroudsburg, where they had four ponies, two dogs, four cats and a wild fox.

    Word Count: 706

  • Portrait of Lilo Hess – Life, 6 September 1943, p. 21 (Photo: Helene Roth).
    Photography by Lilo Hess – Fotografische Rundschau, vol. 72, 1935, p. 323 (Photo: Helene Roth).
    Book cover Odd Pets (Crowell, 1951).
    Front of the book Odd Pets (Crowell, 1951).
    Inside of the book Odd Pets (Crowell, 1951).
    Photo of drinking gibbons at the Bronx Zoo, photographed by Lilo Hess (Life, 13 December 1948, p. 126).
  • Anonymous. "Liselotta ‚Lilo‘ Hess.“ Poncono Record, 21 December 2003. Last accessed 11 March 2022.

    Commire, Anne, editor. Something about the Author, vol. 4. Gale Research, 1973.

    Devlin, John C. "Christopher W Coates, 74, Dies; Headed New York Aquarium1.” New York Times, 1 January 1974, p. 22. Accessed 22 March 2022.

    Hess, Lilo. „Family Affairs on Gibbon Island." Animal Kingdom. Bulletin of the New York Zoological Society, vol. 48, no. 6, 1945, pp.163–166.

    Holtze, Sally Holmes, editor. Fifth book of junior authors & illustrators. H.W. Wilson Co., 1983.

    Life issues: vol. 10, no. 16, 1941, pp. 73f.; vol. 12, no. 23, 1942, p. 103; vol. 12, no. 19, 1942, p. 110; vol. 13, no. 10, 1942, p. 107; vol. 13. no. 16, 1942, p. 148; vol. 13, no., 26, 1942, p. 88; vol. 14, no. 10, 1932, pp. 7f.; vol. 15, no. 8, 1943, p. 57; vol. 15, no. 10, 1943, pp. 126f.; vol. 15, no. 20, 1943, pp. 71, 72, 74; vol. 16, no. 14, 1944, pp. 117, 118, 120; vol. 16, no. 17, 1944, pp. 87f.; vol. 17, no. 3, 1944, p. 9ff.; vol. 19, no.10, 1945, pp. 99, 100, 103; vol. 19, no. 11, 1946, pp. 138–141; vol. 19, no. 25, 1946, p. 71; vol. 20, no. 22, 1946, pp. 85f.; vol. 21, no. 14, 1946, pp. 53, 54, 56; vol. 22, no. 3, 1947, p. 126; vol. 24, no. 21, 1948, pp. 125–131; vol. 25, no. 24, 1948, p. 126; vol. 27 no. 7, 1949, pp. 74ff.; vol. 27, no. 12, 1949, pp. 171f.; vol. 29, no. 20, 1950, pp. 77–81; vol. 30, no. 12, 1951, p. 22f.; vol. 31, no. 6, 1951, pp. 44–47.

    Word Count: 161

  • Helene Roth
  • London, GB (before 1938); New York City, US (1938-1965).

  • 218 East 15th Street, Union Square, New York City (residence, 1938-?); 87 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York City (1960s?.

  • New York
  • Helene Roth. "Lilo Hess." METROMOD Archive, 2021, https://archive.metromod.net/viewer.p/69/2948/object/5138-10774268, last modified: 14-04-2022.
  • Walter Sanders
    Photographer
    New York

    Walter Sanders was a German émigré photographer. In 1938 he arrived in New York, where he worked from 1939 until the end of his life for the Black Star agency and, from 1944, for Life magazine.

    Word Count: 33

    Rolf Tietgens
    PhotographerEditorWriter
    New York

    Rolf Tietgens was a German émigré photographer who arrived in New York in 1938. Although, in the course of his photographic career, his artistic and surrealist images were published and shown at exhibitions, his work, today, is very little known.

    Word Count: 39

    Ernest Nash
    PhotographerArchaeologistLawyer
    New York

    Ernest Nash was a German born photographer, who pursued his photographic as well as an archeologic interest in Roman architecture after his emigration to New York in 1939. Besides this research interest, he also worked as a portrait photographer and publisher.

    Word Count: 40

    Gerda Peterich
    Photographer
    New York

    The German émigré Gerda Peterich had a photographic studio at 332 West 56th Street and in New York, where she specialised in dance and portraiture. In addition, she visited dance studios and photographed outside in the city.

    Word Count: 36

    Ylla
    Photographer
    New York

    Ylla was an Austrian-born photographer who emigrated to New York in 1941. Specialising in animal photography, she produced not only studio photographs, but also shot outside on urban locations in the metropolis.

    Word Count: 31

    Ruth Staudinger
    PhotographerCinematographerArt dealer
    New York

    Very few and only fragmentary details can be found on the German émigré photographer Ruth Staudinger, who emigrated in the mid-1930s to New York City. Her nomadic life was also characterisedd by several changes of name along the way.

    Word Count: 40

    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

    T. Lux Feininger
    PhotographerPainter
    New York

    Lux T. Feininger was a German-American émigré photographer and painter and the brother of the photographer Andreas Feininger, arriving in 1936 in New York. Although he started taking photographs during the 1920s in Germany, Feininger is better known for his career as a painter and his photographic work is largely unacknowledged.

    Word Count: 50

    Henry Rox
    PhotographerSculptor
    New York

    Henry Rox was a German émigré sculptor and photographer who, in 1938, arrived in New York with his wife, the journalist and art historian Lotte Rox (née Charlotte Fleck), after an initial exile in London. Besides his work as a sculptor, he began creating humorous anthropomorphised fruit and vegetable photographs.

    Word Count: 50

    Chinatown U.S.A.
    Photobook
    New York

    Chinatown U.S.A. is a photobook published by the German émigré photographer Elizabeth Coleman in 1946 focusing on American-Chinese communities in New York and San Francisco.

    Word Count: 26

    5th Avenue
    Photobook
    New York

    5th Avenue was the first photobook by Fred Stein and was created in 1947 with the publishing house Pantheon Books.

    Word Count: 19

    New York World's Fair postcard View of the Constitution Mall looking toward statue of George Washington and Trylon and Perisphere
    Postcard
    New York

    Shortly after the arrival in New York in 1939, photographs by the German émigré Ernest Nash were used and reproduced for postcards of the New York’s World’s Fair.

    Word Count: 29

    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

    J.J. Augustin Incorporated Publisher
    Publishing House
    New York

    J.J. Augustin was a German publishing house in Glückstadt with a long history, going back to 1632. In 1936 the American branch opened in New York with a large artistic and cultural focus.

    Word Count: 33

    Pantheon Books
    Publishing House
    New York

    Pantheon Books was a publishing house founded in 1942 by the German émigré Kurt Wolff (1887–1963) and aimed at the exiled European community in New York.

    Word Count: 24

    Pavelle Laboratories Inc.
    Photo LabPhoto Supplier
    New York

    Pavelle Laboratories was found in 1936 by Leo and Carmen Pavelle and operated on East 42nd Street. It was specialised in the development of miniature camera film and one of the first labs working with colour film.

    Word Count: 36

    Josef Breitenbach
    Photographer
    New York

    On arriving in New York in 1941, the German photographer Josef Breitenbach tried to restart as a portrait, street and experimental photographer, as well as a teacher of photo-history and techniques.

    Word Count: 30

    Andreas Feininger
    PhotographerWriterEditor
    New York

    Andreas Feininger, was a German émigré photographer who arrived in New York with his wife Wysse Feininger in 1939. He started a lifelong career exploring the city's streets, working as a photojournalist and writing a large number of photography manuals.

    Word Count: 39

    Tim Gidal
    PhotographerPublisherArt Historian
    New York

    Tim Gidal was a German-Jewish photographer, publisher and art historian emigrating in 1948 emigrated to New York. Besides his teaching career, he worked as a photojournalist and, along with his wife Sonia Gidal, published youth books.

    Word Count: 35

    Ellen Auerbach
    Photographer
    New York

    When she arrived in New York in 1937, the German-born photographer Ellen Auerbach (formerly Rosenberg) had already passed through exile stations in Palestine and Great Britain.

    Word Count: 25

    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

    Trude Fleischmann
    Photographer
    New York

    Trude Fleischmann was an Austrian-Jewish portrait and dance photographer who emigrated in 1939 to New York, where she opened a studio in Midtown Manhattan with the photographer Frank Elmer.

    Word Count: 28

    Julian Huxley
    ZoologistPhilosopherWriter
    London

    Julian Huxley was the director of London Zoo from 1935 to 1942 and worked closely with emigrant photographers, artists and architects, including Berthold Lubetkin, Erna Pinner and Wolf Suschitzky.

    Word Count: 27

    Wolf Suschitzky
    PhotographerCinematographer
    London

    The Viennese Wolf Suschitzky made a career as a photographer and cinematographer after emigrating to London in 1935.

    Word Count: 17

    Animal Language
    Sound Book
    London

    In 1938, the London publisher Country Life published the Animal Language sound book which featured text by Julian Huxley, audio records produced by Ludwig Koch and photographs by Ylla.

    Word Count: 28