Toni Schneiders

• Name — Toni Schneiders • Born — 27 April 1920 • Birthplace — Urbar, Germany • Died — 4 August 2006 • Place of death — Lindau, Germany • Known for — Photography • Movement — fotoform

Schneiders took up an apprenticeship as a photographer at Menzel Studio in Koblenz in 1935 graduating with a master's certificate in 1938. During the Second World War he was drafted and would join the Fallschirmjäger in 1942. He deployed as a war correspondent in France and Italy, famously capturing Operation Oak on film. • Illustration — Schneiders with a Leica camera, near Nettuno, Italy, February 1944 After the war, he returned to Koblenz and photographed reportages as well as advertising and landscape photographs. In 1946 he moved to Meersburg, where he opened a photo studio in 1948. In 1949 Schneiders went to Lindau as an independent photojournalist, where he lived and worked with his wife Ingeborg from 1952 until his death in 2006. His archive is housed in the F. C. Gundlach Foundation in Hamburg, his war photography in the German Federal Archive in Koblenz. In 1949 Schneiders co-founded the avant-garde photography group fotoform alongside Siegfried Lauterwasser, Peter Keetman, Wolfgang Reisewitz, Otto Steinert and Ludwig Windstoßer. With their graphically designed images, the fotoform photographers referred to the photographic trends of the 1920s and early 1930s and drew attention to the creative possibilities of photography. Schneiders was also significantly involved in the development of the so-called subjective photography in the 1950s, which became internationally known through exhibitions and publications under the title Subjektive Fotografie compiled by Otto Steinert. Until his death in 2005, Schneiders was in close contact with Peter Keetman. Toni Schneiders' images are distinguished from those of his companions by their sensitive capturing of people in everyday life. Schneiders worked commercially for publishing houses that created photographic picture books on cities, countries and regions. From 1950 he travelled through Germany, Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia for these illustrated books.

• Epische Kamera, Staatliche Landesbildstelle, Hamburg 1962 • Bilder des bekannten Lindauer Künslter-Fotografen Toni Schneiders, Rungesaal, Lindau 1963 • Farbfotografien, Landesbildstelle Stuttgart 1966 • Toni Schneiders, GDL – Fotograf, Fotomuseum im Stadtmuseum, Munich 1982 • Toni Schneiders, fotoform, Kornhaus Galerie, Weingarten 1994 • Toni Schneiders, Photographien 1946–1980, Fotomuseum im Stadtmuseum, Munich 1999 and other locations • Ein Klassiker der deutschen Fotografie, Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig 2004 • Toni Schneiders: Fotografie, Landesmuseum Koblenz 2006 and other locations • Tony Schneiders: Fotografie, Opelvillen, Rüsselsheim 2013 • 2019/2020: Ludwig Windstosser. Fotografie der Nachkriegsmoderne, Museum für Fotografie, Berlin