Around 1910 a postman and smallholder living in the village of Missen in the Allgäu had bought a handsome gramophone. It must have been a real sensation for the locals. The owner proudly presented his treasure with a record in front of his house. We know that because his neighbor, the farmer Auguste Städele, captured this moment with her camera. The impressive photography naturally raises many questions that can no longer be answered. But it makes one thing clear: Together with the bicycle, which had come to the village as a novelty a few years earlier, the gramophone marks the beginning of a new era in the tranquil church village of Missen.
We would not know anything about these upheaval events in the countryside if Auguste Städele had not documented them. That is also a small miracle. Which farmer would have come up with the idea of dedicating herself to photography at that time? Auguste Städele does. She was probably the first in her booth to hold a camera in her hands. Born in 1879, she grew up in a large family. After the village pastor gave her a plate camera and the chaplain familiarized her with the technology, she immediately got down to work. The earliest surviving photograph dates from 1898. She found her motifs in the high valley above the Alpsee. Here she documented the rural life and the seasonal rhythm of the church year, but also the progress that inexorably penetrated the Alpine valleys and found its expression in fashion, in bicycles and in the gramophone.
In 1927 Auguste Städele portrayed her mother Josefa. A perfect production with a cyclist in the background, which suggests that Auguste also had a humorous streak.
(Photo: Auguste Städele / House of Bavarian History)
The photographer Auguste Städele would never have been discovered if it hadn’t been for chance again. A few years ago, the folklorist Jürgen Schmid was out doing research in the Allgäu. In Missen, Viktoria Städele told him that there were old photos of her mother-in-law in her attic. There were more than 500 glass plate negatives, created between 1900 and 1920.
The House of Bavarian History in Regensburg now shows parts of this unique photo chronicle of Allgäu village life in its foyer, as a thematic addition to the current state exhibition “The Last Monarchs”, which marked the great change of times at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century thematized. The show raises many exciting questions: Why did the young farmer’s daughter start taking photos, why did she stop after the First World War? How did the business work in your private studio, which was set up in the garden of the farm with painted fabric backdrops?
Eugen Heimhuber in 1927 on the 2200 meter high Nebelhorn. With bellows camera and tripod as well as with glass plates in the backpack. He and his brother took more than 18,000 recordings in this way.
(Photo: Fotostudio Heimhuber, Sonthofen / House of Bavarian History)
The time around 1900 – everything is in upheaval. In the Allgäu, the photo pioneers still captured the familiar, but also the new. In addition to Städele’s pictures, the work of the Heimhuber brothers from Sonthofen will be presented in Regensburg. Even if they were once only 15 kilometers apart as the crow flies, the differences couldn’t be greater: here the farmer’s wife taking photos, there two offspring of a court photographer with a studio and a publisher behind him.
The post motor car from Sonthofen, which is on the road with a distinguished company in 1926. The climatic health resort at the entrance to the mountains was already very popular back then.
(Photo: Fotostudio Heimhuber, Sonthofen / House of Bavarian History)
The father of Fritz (1877-1963) and Eugen Heimhuber (1879-1966) had set up his first studio in Sonthofen in 1876 and was appointed “Royal Bavarian Court Photographer” in 1899. The brothers entered the business as apprentices when they were 13 years old and from then on discovered the rugged mountain world photographically. They built their first ski equipment themselves, went into ski manufacturing and left around 18,000 recordings behind.
Auguste Städele married the farmer, postal administrator and later mayor Franz Josef Städele in 1906. She will not have been short of work, especially in those years when her husband had to go to war. She gave birth to seven children, six of whom died in childhood or in war. Why she gave up photography after the war is a mystery. Her last recording is from 1930. She gave away her equipment after the Second World War. What a masterful look and what sense for the comic is shown by the perfectly staged picture she took of her mother Josefa in 1927. A cyclist appears exactly above their head, stopped by the long pole growing out of Josefa’s head. Your estate occupies a unique position in the history of culture and photography. It is somewhat reminiscent of the work of the American street photographer Vivian Maier, who was a nanny by profession and lived inconspicuously. Her world-class photographs were also not discovered until after her death.
Bavarian photography pioneers – Auguste Städele and the Heimhuber brothers from the Allgäu. Foyer of the House of Bavarian History, Regensburg, until March 20, 2022. The exhibition is open to the public free of charge from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Monday.