Otto Maximilian Umbehr

Otto Maximilian Umbehr studied at Bauhaus. The recorded working language is German. The field of work recorded is photography and photojournalism. Places of work recorded in the authority are Salzburg. Work by Otto Maximilian Umbehr is recorded in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and J. Paul Getty Museum.

Otto Umbehr was born in Düsseldorf and is known for his photo journalism as well as artworks. Umbehr was the second of six children of industrial architect Karl Friedrich Umbehr. His mother Frieda died when he was a young boy. He was trained in Duisburg, Aachen and Düsseldorf. In 1921, he studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar where he attended classes by Johannes Itten. At the Bauhaus he became acquainted with Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Citroen, Wassily Kandinsky and Eva Besnyö and was influenced by László Moholy-Nagy. With Citroen's help, Umbehr took on the artist name of Umbo and started a photo studio in 1926. He made photo collages as a camera assistant for the 1927 film by Walter Ruttmann called Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis.

In 1928 he became one of the founding members of the agency Dephot (Deutscher Photo Service GmbH) where he was friends with Felix H. Man and Robert Capa. The agency was closed by the Nazis in 1933. During the Nazi period, Umbo worked as a photojournalist for the magazine Signal, which reported from the frontlines. In 1943 his photo archives, containing 50,000–60,000 negatives, were destroyed in a bombing raid on Berlin. Only a few of his works from that period have survived. After the war Umbo returned to Hanover with his wife, the graphic designer Imgard Wanders and their daughter. He lost his left eye, but that did not prevent him from continuing his art. He is known for photos of the ruins of postwar Hanover and later taught photography at the School of Applied Arts there. From 1975 onwards his photographs were more widely accepted by the art critics and he was able to take part in several exhibitions.