Swordsman, Arthur von

Officer, photographer, cameraman

Born: 03.02.1891 in Leoben (Styria, Austria)

died: 13.03.1967 in Wiesbaden

As an officer in the Austrian Air Force, Schwertführer undertook reconnaissance flights during the First World War and used his camera as a photographic reconnaissance officer. From May 1919, he spent six months as secretary to the former Austrian Emperor Charles I in exile in Switzerland on Lake Geneva. In 1920, he began studying chemistry in Munich, but switched to the Higher Technical School for Photography in 1921.

After successfully training as a photographer and cinema technician, he made a career as a cameraman. From 1922-34, he worked for numerous well-known directors in Berlin, Paris, London and Hollywood. He realized in good time that the days of silent film were numbered and trained as a sound engineer in Paris from 1929-31. In 1934, he was one of 18 cameramen involved in the production of Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the Will". In the same year, he came into conflict with the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and had to look for a new field of activity. In 1935, he moved to the renowned camera manufacturer Eugen Bauer GmbH. In 1940, he was called up for military service.

After the end of the war and his release from American captivity, Schwertführer opened a photo studio at Hainerweg 12 in Wiesbaden. He founded a newsreel under the title "Welt im Bild". He mainly worked as a portrait and advertising photographer and photojournalist. He received an award for his best-known photographic work entitled "Feuervogel" from 1953. In 1955, he founded his popular school for color photography in Wiesbaden. As a freelancer for ADOX Fotowerke, Schwertführer also tirelessly promoted the technical progress of color photography.

In 1962, he earned a reputation as a magician of color photography with a process he developed himself, in which he showed the public step by step in "live events" how a finished image is created from a photograph that has not yet been developed. His numerous photographic lectures, in which he used brilliant medium-format slides, also caused a sensation and gained him recognition.