The Washington Diplomat

The Observant Eye
Photojournalist Harry Weber Captured Tragic, Tender Side of Life
by Serena Lei

The center room of the Austrian Embassy is a grand, two-story space that doubles as an art gallery and concert hall. Other than the piano at the far end of the room, the space is awkwardly empty, reflecting the echoes of voices from the rooms above. The current photography exhibit, “Harry Weber: A Retrospective,” is dwarfed by the size of the room. The 30 to 40 photographs displayed on each wall come across as decorations rather than an exhibit. Fortunately, what the presentation lacks in style, Weber makes up for in substance.

Harry Weber was a press photographer and claimed that he only documented what he saw: “I do not compose, I shoot.” There are no abstract pictures, no tricks of overexposure—just black-and-white photographs documenting human life. But Weber’s photographs are not objective reports, particularly when his subject matter, including Vienna and Jerusalem, are so close to his heart. He does, however, have the observant eye of a press photographer, capturing unplanned moments—the concentration of a violinist practicing backstage or the enthusiasm of a woman dancing on the street.

Weber was born in 1921 in Vienna. When Weber was 17, his father was arrested and sent to a concentration camp in Dachau. Weber could not persuade his mother to leave Vienna, so he went alone to Palestine and served in the British army until 1946. After leaving the military, Weber was reunited with his father and learned that his mother had been deported and murdered.

Together, Weber and his father moved back to Austria. Weber’s relationship with Vienna is complex—although it is the place he calls home, it also reminds him of his mother, and the regret he feels for not being able to save her. His photographs of Vienna are at times poignant, at times disturbing.

Weber’s interest in photography began when he met his wife, Marianne, a photo-laboratory technician. Weber admits to being too impatient to work in the darkroom, so Marianne helped him develop his first photographs. He began as a freelance photographer and then worked as a staff photographer for Stern magazine and other publications. In 1967, Weber became chief of photography for the Vienna branch of Verlag Gruner and Jahr. He also worked for the stage review “Die Bühne” and was the photographer for the annual Salzburg Music Festival and the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna.

Weber, this year’s winner of the Austrian State Prize, published several books of photography, and his work has been exhibited in America, Europe and Israel. It is difficult to cull the right photographs for a retrospective of a 50-year career as productive as Weber’s, but the collection at the Austrian Embassy is diverse and well planned, albeit tame.

Some of Weber’s more disturbing photographs have been left out of the collection. These include his series on patients in a mental institution and children in a hospital. Weber’s unflinching documentation of war, hunger and poverty—a child with an amputated leg playing in a field, a soldier walking past a corpse, a homeless man, frame by frame, being dragged away by police—are not part of the retrospective. These pictures are unsettling, but not shocking. The subtle way that Weber asks us to see misfortune and heartbreak is evidence of his talent.

This is not to take away from the pictures on display. Weber’s photographs of individuals are often simultaneously tragic and tender. In “Park, Schönbrunn Castle,” a woman in a fur coat sits alone on a park bench, a tiny figure in the foreground. “In the Street Car” is a photograph of a man folded into a single bus seat, clutching a plastic bag. He is hunched over a boo k, smaller than his hand, presumably trying to read the small type. The bus has stopped, but his back is to the door. In both pictures, we cannot see the faces of the individuals, but the photograph itself is so expressive; we can imagine the concentration on the man’s face, or the loneliness of the woman on the bench.

Simple, ordinary moments become beautiful through Weber’s camera. A mother says a prayer in front of a menorah, while her daughter mimics her by covering her eyes with her hands. A child hands a coin to a violinist on the street. Even in his photographs of celebrities and political figures, Weber brings out their humanity rather than elevating their status. From his work with the theater, Weber shows us the joy of dance and music. His dancers in mid-air at the Harlem Dance Theater are lit with a halo glow.

Weber’s work with Stern allowed him to travel extensively. His photographs of Hong Kong, India and Jerusalem, among others, are included in the exhibit. “Hong Kong 1965” shows a crowded downtown street walled in on both sides by apartment buildings, all six floors cluttered with hanging laundry. At the end of the street, new construction is in progress, trying, perhaps in vain, to contain the growing population.

Weber’s sense of humor can be seen in “Afghanistan 1972,” a photograph of a signpost on a dirt road illustrated with a car on one side and a camel on the other. Weber also photographed the Buddha statues in Afghanistan. The original towering figures carved into a cliff wall are now memories in black and white.

Despite its efforts, the exhibit at the Austrian Embassy is too small to be properly called a retrospective of the artist’s career. Harry Weber is a brilliant photographer whose work deserves more than a second glance. My advice—buy his books.

“Harry Weber: A Retrospective” runs through Feb. 15 at the Embassy of Austria, 3524 International Court, NW, Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, please call (202) 895-6776.

Serena Lei is an arts writer for The Washington Diplomat.