Wolfgang Georg Sievers (1913 - 2007) International Harvester,… - Australian & Colonial - Leski Auctions Pty. Ltd.

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Description:

Wolfgang Georg Sievers (1913 - 2007) International Harvester, Natco Multiple Spinole Drill, Geelong c.1950, vintage silver gelatin photograph, photographer's stamp and titled in pencil verso, 50.5 x 39.5 cm. Laid down on original board. Provenance: Max Dupain estate. Illustrated in Calado, 'Wolfgang Sievers: Life Line 1933-1993' (Portugal, 2000) plate 92. Sievers was born in Berlin, Germany. His father was Professor Johannes Sievers, an art and architectural historian with the German Foreign Office until his dismissal by the government in 1933. His mother was Herma Schiffer, a writer and educator of Jewish background, who was Director of the Institute for Educational Films. In 1938, he was retained as a teacher at the Contempora, but decided to emigrate to Australia following rumours of the school's imminent closure by the authorities. He had arranged for his photographic equipment to be transported, but was briefly questioned by the Gestapo, then conscripted as an aerial photographer for the Luftwaffe. He fled the country immediately, going first to England in June. In Australia, Sievers opened a studio in South Yarra and when war was declared, he volunteered for the Australian Army and served from 1942 to 1946. Following demobilisation, he established a studio at Grosvenor Chambers in Collins Street, initially drawing many of his commissions from fellow European immigrants including the architects Frederick Romberg, and Ernst Fuchs who had arrived from Vienna. In later life Sievers was active in Australia, Germany and Austria with research into the emigration of war criminals to Australia from 1990 to 1998. In 2007, he donated several hundred photographs from his archive, worth up to A$1 million, to raise money for justice and civil liberties causes.

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Category:

Unclassified