Ernst Haas (March 2, 1921 – September 12, 1986) was an Austrian-American photojournalist and color photographer. During his 40-year career Haas trod the line between photojournalism and art photography. In addition to his coverage of events around the globe after World War II Haas was an early innovator in color photography. His images were carried by magazines like Life and Vogue and, in 1962, were the subject of the first single-artist exhibition of color photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He served as president of the cooperative Magnum Photos. His book of volcano photographs, The Creation (1971), remains one of the most successful photography books ever published, selling more than 350,000 copies.
Early life and education
Haas was born in Vienna, Austria, on March 2, 1921. He was the son of Ernst Haas, a high-level civil servant, and Frederike Haas-Zipser. He had an older brother named Fritz Haas.
Haas was raised in the cultural climate of Vienna before World War II. His parents, who placed great value upon education and the arts, encouraged his creative pursuits from an early age. His father enjoyed music and photography, and his mother wrote poetry and aspired to be an artist. Haas's teachers had him act as a judge, rather than a participant, in artistic competitions among his peers. As a painter, he had particular interest in an artwork's formal qualities, and developed a refined sense of composition and perspective.
From 1935 to 1938, Haas attended LEH Grinzing, a private school in Vienna, where he studied art, literature, poetry, philosophy, and science. His formal education was interrupted in 1938, when the school was closed following Germany's invasion of Austria. The following year, Haas received his diploma from Rainer Gymnasium.
Haas was sent to a German army labor camp, working six hours a day in exchange for two daily hours of school attendance. He left the service in 1940 and returned to Vienna to study medicine. Haas was only able to complete one year of medical school before he was forced out as a result of his Jewish ancestry.
Introduction to photography
Haas was uninterested in learning photography as a child, though his father tried to encourage him. Upon his father's death in 1940, Haas first entered the darkroom, learning to print old family negatives. His interest grew, and he soon began to take his own photographs.
Though his formal education was complicated by the war, Haas was an autodidact and worked to learn the medium. In 1941, as the “school photographer” of the Max Reinhardt Film Seminar, he attended technical classes and developed an interest in filmmaking. Haas also took advantage of his family's extensive library, as well as museums and libraries in Vienna. He studied philosophy and poetry, in particular, both of which informed his beliefs about the creative potential for photography.
A Poet’s Camera selection of photography by Bryan Holme (1946), which combined poetry with metaphoric imagery by artists like Edward Weston, was particularly important to Haas's early development. Many of his first extant photographs—close-ups of plants, water, and natural forms—reflect its influence.
Unsure of his career path, Haas realized that photography could provide both a means of support and a vehicle for communicating his ideas. He obtained his first camera in 1946, at the age of 25, trading a 20-pound block of margarine for a Rolleiflex on the Vienna black market. Of the decision, he later said: