Kurt S. Safranski worked as an illustrator, cartoonist and publisher in Berlin during the 1920s at the Ullstein Publishing House together with Kurt Korff, who later was involved in the founding of Life magazine in New York in 1936. He also trained as a graphic artist with Lucien Bernhard, father of the émigré photographer Ruth Bernhard, in Berlin. In 1934, as an endangered Jew, he emigrated to New York with his wife Maria and daughter Tina to work for the Hearst Magazine Division and in 1936 joined German émigrés Ernest Mayer and Kurt Kornfeld in founding the Black Star photo agency. During the 1940s and 1950s he also taught at the New School for Social Research.

Little information can be found on the life and work of Kurt Safranski in New York. Although he was one of the founding members of the Black Star photo agency and well connected within photographic and journalistic circles in New York, and therefore often cited in this context, personal details are scant. After his arrival in New York in 1934 he americanised his name to Kurt Stephen Safranski (formerly Szafranski). During his first two years in New York, from 1934 to 1936, he resided at the Park Crescent Hotel at 150 Riverside Drive, where Ernest Mayer and Kurt Kornfeld also lived, in 1935 and 1936 respectively. In 1936 Safranski and his family moved to New Rochelle, where they lived from 1936 until 1958, at several locations. Mayer and Kornfeld also moved to New Rochelle the same year. The commute to the Black Star office could be done by train, arriving at Grand Central Station, from where there was easy access to 420 Lexington Avenue, where the agency was located. From 1937 to 1942 Kurt Safranski was vice president of Black Star (while Ernest Mayer was probably responsible for the London branch of Black Star) and, from April 1942 to December 1943, worked as coordinator in the Office of War Information. In 1944 he probably worked for Look magazine after his return to Black Star in 1943, where he remained until his retirement in 1958. Safranski was a photo agent at Black Star, working with such European émigrés as Ruth Bernhard, Ralph Crane (Rudolf Crohn), Andreas Feininger, Fritz Goro (Gorodiski), Carola Gregor (Gorodiski, née Margarete Meyer), Philippe Halsman, Fritz Henle, Lilly Joss (Joseph), Lisa Larsen (Rothschild), Walter Sanders (Suessmann), Fred Stein, Roman Vishniac and Werner Wolff.

In 1940 he published the book Selling Your Pictures (Ziff Davis). This photojournalism handbook and technical guide was aimed at both amateur and professional photographers and photojournalists who wanted to know more about how to sell their pictures to photo agencies and on the general photographic market. Kurt Safranski promoted Black Star photographers in his book, reproducing several of their photographs. The book was published by the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Safranski also published articles offering advice on photographic matters in different magazines, for example “Backgrounds.” (Minicam Photography, July 1945). In 1938 he wrote the flyer for Ruth Bernhard’s exhibition at the PM Gallery. Safranski knew Ruth’s father, Lucien Bernhard, from his time in Berlin and the two had stayed in contact after they both emigrated to New York. It can be assumed that this connection also brought Ruth Bernhard photo commissions from Black Star.
Another lifelong contact of Kurt Safranski's was the émigré photographer Lotte Jacobi. In Lotte Jacobi’s papers archived in New Hampshire can be found several letters dating from 1947 to 1961 in which the two wrote about their private lives as well as their photographic and journalistic activities. It can also be assumed that they and Lotte Jacobi’s husband Erich Reiss all knew each other from their time in Berlin during the 1920s and early 1930s.

In August 1948 an article on the German photographer Erich Salomon appeared in Popular Photography. During the 1920s and 1930s Erich Salomon was a well know photographer and one of the creaters of the picture story format pioneered by such German magazines as Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (BIZ). Salomon and Safranski knew each other from their time in Berlin, where they both worked for the Ullstein Verlag publishing company, and remained in contact after Safranski’s emigration in 1933. Correspondence between them clearly reveals that Safranski tried to persuade Salomon, who had fled to Den Haag in 1933, to emigrate to New York. Salomon was reluctant to leave and in 1944 he and his family became victims of the Holocaust. “There is no grave and no tombstone for Erich Salomon. Nothing remains but his name and work: the memory of a man who made photographic history – and history of photography” (Safranski 1948, 108) are the final words in an article by Safranski on Erich Salomon. During the early 1930s Erich Salomon had visited New York and created some picture stories on the metropolis for Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. He was also among the first to  gain photographic access to the White House in Washington D.C.

In 1953 Safranski returned briefly to Berlin to assist in conception and production for the relaunch of the Sonntags-Illustrierten magazine by the Ullstein publishing house (Keil 2019). It was to be relaunched as an American-style colour weekend supplement and the first issue came out in March 1954. Unfortunately, the readers’ willingness to buy the supplement at a higher subscription price, or to buy it separately, was low. In addition, the magazine lacked topicality and flair compared to its competitors and the colour printing was expensive. The project ended after only six issues on 25 April 1954 with a loss of 1.5 million marks (Keil, 2019).

From the autumn of 1944 Kurt Safranski gave his “Pictorial Journalism” course at the New School for Social Research, in which he followed an interdisciplinary approach between photography, journalism and literature. In the 1950s he added a second course and workshop with “Photography as Mass Communication” which continued until his retirement in 1958. Among those who took his Pictorial Journalism course was the photographer W.G. Smith, who also worked for Black Star. In the same year, 1958, Safranski also retired from Black Star. Other émigrés giving lessons in photography and offering photojournalism courses were Josef Breitenbach, Lisette Model, Marion Palfi, Charles Leirens, Alexey Brodovitch and Tim Gidal. The émigrés Fred Stein and Werner Wolff also frequented the New School, working as commissioned work for the Black Star photo agency, and the German émigré Erika Stone was a student there.