Erich Auerbach was born in Falknov nad Ohří in Austria-Hungary (now Sokolov in the Czech Republic) in 1911. He studied at the Prague University Collegium Musicum and worked part-time as a music critic before switching to a career in journalism and photography. He immigrated to England in 1939 where he continued to work as a successful photographer, primarily of musicians and artists.
Photographer Erich Auerbach was born in Falknov nad Ohří, Austria-Hungary (now Sokolov, Czech Republic) in 1911 to Dr. Ignaz Auerbach and Hermine (née Zentner). He was educated in Karlsbad and the Prague University Collegium Musicum. He first worked part-time as a music critic for the German language newspaper Prager Tagblatt while studying. After this, he switched to a career in journalism and photography. He received his first professional camera as a gift from his father which enabled him to document the landscapes and people of Austria-Hungary. He was greatly inspired by the German photojournalist Erich Salomon, one of the first to take unposed studies of well-known figures in unguarded moments. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, Auerbach established himself as a journalist and photographer and worked for major newspapers in Prague, publishing his photographs across Europe. During the 1930s, he photographed the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (then under the leadership of Czech conductor Václav Talich), as well as visiting composers, conductors and instrumentalists from across the continent, including Maurice Ravel and Pablo Casals.
In 1939, he escaped Austria-Hungary on foot, travelling through Poland before using his contacts in the British press to enable him to travel to England. He settled in London where he worked in exile for the Photographic Division, Department of Information, Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs as chief government photographer from April 1941 to July 1945, where he was responsible for photographing government activities and the war effort. He developed the Ministry's photographic library from only a few prints to a collection of more than 300 files with several thousand photographs and negatives. He left this role when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs closed down after the liberation of Czechoslovakia. He never returned home, instead permanently settling in London, marrying in 1946, and becoming a naturalised British citizen in 1947. After leaving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he worked for the magazine Illustrated between 1945 and 1957 as a staff cameraman. From 1955 until his death, he worked as a freelance photographer for the Observer, Daily Herald, The Times and Sunday Times newspapers, among others. He combined his love of music and photography by taking photographs of great composers, conductors, and musicians, among them Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky, Sir Charles Mackerras and Sir Henry Wood (founder of The Proms annual series of concerts), while later sitters included the celebrated couple, conductor Daniel Barenboim and his cellist wife, Jacqueline du Pré. He also photographed artists, including Sir Jacob Epstein (Tate Archives), as well as the English urban and rural landscape, including recording traveller communities in the outdoors. In 1960 Auerbach was elected a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (FRPS). In a letter to a friend, he wrote of his passion for photography: 'With all its setbacks and eternal struggles, photography is a lovely thing, and I feel a warm satisfaction after such a day’s work' (Geni). In 1971, he published his first book of photographs entitled An Eye for Music, with a foreword by distinguished Jewish lawyer and 'fixer', Lord Goodman. His work was featured posthumously in the survey exhibition, British Photography 1955–65: The Mastercraftsmen in Print, held in 1983 at the Photographers' Gallery in London, an initiative co-founded by émigré photographer, Dorothy Bohm, who was also the Gallery's associate director for 15 years.
Auerbach died in London in 1977 at the age of 65, survived by his widow, Lizzy, and their daughter, Monica Beaumont. Beaumont has taken charge of her father's photographs since his death. In 1996, an additional volume of his photographs, Images of Music, was produced by the Hulton Getty Picture Collection Ltd, which holds the copyright to his archive of musical images. In 2005, a newly discovered collection of Auerbach's photographs were published and exhibited in Prague in an exhibition entitled London Calling – Czechoslovak Government in Exile, 1939–1945 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. His photographs are held in several UK public collections, including the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate, and the Royal College of Music, London.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Erich Auerbach]
Publications related to [Erich Auerbach] in the Ben Uri Library