Kurt Hutton (né Kurt Heinrich Hübschmann) was born to a Protestant father and a Jewish mother in Strasbourg, Alsace, Germany (now France) in 1893. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Hutton worked as a portrait photographer and photojournalist in Berlin, briefly sharing a studio with avant-garde photographer Germaine Krull. In 1934, he immigrated to England to avoid Nazi persecution and settled in London, where he took photographs for innovative magazines such as Weekly Illustrated, Lilliput, and Picture Post.
Photographer Kurt Hutton (né Kurt Heinrich Hübschmann) was born in Strasbourg, Alsace, Germany (now France) in 1893. His father was a professor of comparative philology at the University of Strasbourg and his mother was a dressmaker. Hutton only became aware of his mother’s Jewish identity as an adult (he had even attended the Protestant Gymnasium in Strasbourg between 1902 and 1911, prior to studying law at Queen’s College, University of Oxford) when he saw the Nazis stamp her passport with a ‘J’ (Osman, 2004). After two years at Oxford, Hutton decided that law was not for him and he returned to Strasbourg without completing his degree. Hutton served as a cavalry officer during the First World War and was awarded an Iron Cross (second class) for bravery when carrying frontline dispatches. In early 1918, Hutton contracted tuberculosis in the trenches and was discharged from the army. His parents paid for him to spend the next two years convalescing in a sanatorium in St Moritz, Switzerland. During this period, Hutton rediscovered his childhood love of photography and met his future wife, a Viennese dress designer named Margareta Malvina Rosina Anna Raschitzky, known to her friends as Gretl.
Hutton and Raschitzky married in 1921 and moved to Berlin, where he established his own portrait photography studio. Unable to cope with the business side of his work, Hutton was forced to close the studio after only two years and subsequently shared a studio (Kara-Kundstruck) for two years with the avant-garde photographer, Germaine Krull. In 1926, Hutton went into partnership with his wife’s friend Gertrude Englehardt and together they established the Atelier Englehardt und Hübschmann in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem, where artists, sculptors, designers, and photographers could rent working space (Chillingworth and Wilkinson, 2018). At this time Hutton began experimenting with lightweight, modern cameras such as the Leica and the Contax. Hutton finally received his professional break when he met Simon Guttmann, head of renowned photography and press agency Deutscher Photodienst (also known as Dephot). With Guttmann’s backing, Hutton began to work as a photojournalist for agencies including Dephot, Weltrundschau, and Mauritius. He also undertook freelance assignments for Stefan Lorant, the celebrated Hungarian editor of the newspaper Munchner Illustrierte Presse.
Following Adolf Hitler’s accession to the Chancellorship in 1933, Lorant advised Hutton to leave Germany. Hutton and Gretl briefly considered immigrating to the USA but finally chose England because of his fond memories of Oxford. In 1934, the couple immigrated to England and settled in London, where they were joined by their son Peter and Gretl's mother Adele the following year. Lorant also immigrated to England in 1934 and, soon after arriving in London, founded the magazine Weekly Illustrated. He swiftly employed Hutton as a photographer for the magazine and, by the time the first issue was published in July 1934, Hutton and Felix H. Man (a fellow German émigré photographer) were working tirelessly to build a stockpile of photo stories for future use (Chillingworth and Wilkinson, 2018). Between 1934 and 1938, more than 80 photo stories by Hutton were published in Weekly Illustrated. He also produced photo stories for Lilliput and Picture Post, illustrated magazines with pioneering photo-journalism, founded by Lorant in 1937 and 1938 respectively. Hutton was involved with Picture Post from its outset and was responsible for its first photo essay: ‘The World Looks at No. 10’, which documented the offical residence of the British prime minister and featured in the first issue (published in October 1938). Like many of his contemporaries, Hutton published his photographs anonymously in England so as not to draw attention to his émigré status. Nonetheless, he was still interned as an ‘enemy alien’ on the Isle of Man in June 1940 and only released a year later. When he returned to London, Hutton was made a staff photographer at Picture Post, which was by then under the editorship of Lorant’s former deputy, Tom Hopkinson. In 1947, Hutton and Gretl became British citizens.
Hutton continued to work for Picture Post until 1951 when, shortly after he suffered a heart attack, the couple moved from Hampstead Garden Suburb to Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Hutton was already familiar with the coastal town as he had documented the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts for Picture Post since 1948, the year of its foundation by the composer Benjamin Britten. As a resident of Aldeburgh, Hutton continued to photograph the annual festival for his personal enjoyment. Kurt Hutton died at his home in Aldeburgh, Suffolk in 1960. His work is held in UK public collections including the National Portrait Gallery and Tate.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Kurt Hutton]
Publications related to [Kurt Hutton] in the Ben Uri Library