Herbert Fried is a name that is ultimately little known in the photographic landscape today, and yet, “Herb” immortalized the best years of European and Hollywood cinema of the last century and its emblematic figures, such as Elke Sommer, Romy Schneider, Alain Delon and Audrey Hepburn. The Museum of Modern Art in Passau, Bavaria, is dedicating a retrospective to the German photographer, made possible by the successive discovery of archives recovered by the Atelier & Friends agency to create a real collection.
Herbert Fried was born in Berlin in 1926 to an Austrian father and a German Jewish mother. This dual identity, in a context marked by the rise of Nazism and the upheavals of the Second World War, profoundly influenced his work. On the one hand, a father seduced by the ideals of the Nazi regime; on the other, a mother faced with threats because of her origins. This ideological contrast, a source of family tensions, left an indelible mark on his childhood, which he spent partly in exile in Vienna: “For the first time, I realized that outside of Germany there was another world, inhabited by people who had completely different points of view and embodied completely different ideals,” he confided in his autobiography.
Fascinated by cinema from an early age, Fried found a kind of refuge in photography, both literally and figuratively. In 1943, at the age of 17, he escaped forced labor imposed by the Third Reich by taking a job as a reproduction photographer in a printing house which declared him “unfit” for the mission. He then gained experience in a photographic laboratory for the American armed forces, developing his technical mastery while forging his American Dream.
In 1948, Fried managed to escape to the United States, where he joined his mother, who had emigrated two years earlier. In New York, he laid the foundations of an international career that would lead him to become a photographer who was both discreet and influential. It was then that he was nicknamed “Herb”. He would divide his life between Italy, Germany and the United States, roaming film sets and capturing the greatest personalities of the time, in a format that seemed to define him: the off-frame.
His work is distinguished by an intimate and familiar approach – far from the frozen portraits we are used to from the period. These shots offer a new look at the icons who shaped the seventh art after the war and perfectly complement works by greats such as Irving Penn or Richard Avedon. His lens captures knowing glances, bursts of laughter, stolen moments and we often catch signs of mutual affection, which can be read in the looks his subjects give him: Romy Schneider, for example, in an image captured in a restaurant after a shoot, in the presence of Alain Delon. The third plate on the table suggests that Fried was not only a photographer, but perhaps also – above all? – a friend.
Behind these portraits, there is also and above all a crazy sincerity: that of the sparkling Martine Carol, frying pan in hand, of course, or that of Audrey Hepburn, mischievous, with a basket on her head. Portraits that ultimately manage to demystify the Hollywood star, a perilous exercise. Another photograph shows the Belgian artist alongside Gary Cooper, whose pose, both natural and sensual, evokes a painting. Glamour and lightness blur the boundaries between cinema and reality.
This collection of thousands of photographs has travelled a long way before finding refuge in the heart of the Bavarian forest. It offers a great opportunity to (re)immerse oneself, for the duration of an exhibition, in the cinema of the 50s and 60s, through photographs which, in filigree, tell the social and cultural upheavals of the last century.
Noémie de Bellaigue
The exhibition Herbert Fried: Movie Stars on Set and in Their Private Life can be seen until January 26, 2025 at the MMK Passau.
MMK Passau
Bräugasse 17
94032 Passau, Germany
https://mmk-passau.de
https://www.herbfried.com
