Born: 1899 Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine)
Died: 1981 Darlington, Durham, England
Year of Migration to the UK: 1939
Other name/s: Helene Katz, Helene Lowis
Biography
Photographer Hella Katz (née Helena Katz) was born to Jewish parents in Lemberg in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then administered by Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine) in 1899. Fleeing the Russian advance to eastern Galicia during the First World War, she fled with her family to Vienna, in 1914. The following year, she enrolled in the National Higher Institute of Graphic Teaching and Research, from where she graduated in 1920. Five years later she opened her own portrait photography studio at 18 Stubenring Boulevard in Vienna, capturing society figures and artists including actors Lore von Solvis and Any Hartmann, and singer Richard Waldemar, as well as nudes and images of modern dance. By the 1930s she had become one of the best-known photographers in the city, working for Viennese newspapers Der Tag and Radio Wien. She exhibited with the Hagenbund (twice in 1930) and attracted students, including Hans Popper, Anton Josef Trcka, and Elly Niebuhr. Following the Anschluss (Nazi annexation of Austria) in March 1938, Katz continued teaching and also produced photographs for emigrating Jews. Although she terminated her registration as an Austrian Jew on 20 March 1939, having been granted permission to engage in business, she escaped surveillance and was able to liquidate her business and vacate the premises under the terms of her lease by 30 April 1939. Afterwards, with the assistance of American journalist, William L. Shirer, she planned her departure for Britain but left behind an archive of negatives which was destroyed, probably by looters.
After arriving in Britain, Katz registered with the Jewish Refugee Committee in London, requesting help in finding a company to ship her luggage to America, but in the event, after finding lodgings in Oxshott, Surrey, she chose to remain in England. After the war, Katz married Ronald Lowis and moved to County Durham, where she participated in local photographic competitions focusing on landscapes and portraits but did not resume her professional career. Hella Katz died in Darlington, County Durham in 1981. Most of her surviving photos are held at the MUSA Museum in Vienna, Austria. None of her works can be found in British collections, but in 2020 she received belated recognition with the inclusion of some of her photographs in the exhibition Another Eye: Women Refugee Photographers in Britain after 1933 at the Four Corners Gallery, London and online.
Related books
- Carla Mitchell and John March eds., Another Eye: Women Refugee Photographers in Britain after 1933 (London: Four Corners Gallery, 2020)
- Steve Wick, The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2014), p. 135
- Anton Holzer, Elly Niebuhr – Fotografin aus Wien (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2009), pp. 17-18, 21-22 and 30
- Wolfgang Muchitsch ed., Österreich im Exil: Großbritannien 1939–45, Vol. 1 (Vienna: Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Wiederstandes, 1992)
Public collections
Related organisations
- National Higher Institute of Graphic Teaching and Research, Vienna, Austria (student)
Related web links
- Information on Hella Katz on the Search and Unite website
- Another Eye: Women Refugee Photographers in Britain after 1933 online exhibition by the Four Corners Gallery
- M. Warner, review of 'Another Eye: Women Refugee Photographers in Britain after 1933' exhibition at the Four Corners Gallery, London
- Curators of 'Another Eye: Women Refugee Photographers in Britain after 1933' exhibition talking with Robert Elms on BBC Radio London
- Portrait of Marcella Luzza by Hella Katz in the Jewish Museum, Berlin
Selected exhibitions
- Another Eye: Women Refugee Photographers in Britain after 1933, Four Corners Gallery, London, England (2020)
- Vienna's Shooting Girls: Jewish Women Photographers from Vienna, Jewish Museum, Vienna, Austria (2012)
