Hugo Erfurth; Hans Thoma; Staatliche Landesbildstelle Hamburg; collection on the history of photography; paper; oil print; image size: height: 40;3 cm; width: 26;5 cm; signed and inscribed; eingeritzt: Hugo Erfurth; phot.; Stamp: verso top left: Hugo Erfurth; Zinzendorfstrasse Nr. 11; Dresden; Fernspr. 15125 ; HUGO ERFURTH; COLOGNE; CATHEDRAL LOSTORS; GOLDSCHMIDTHAUS; inscribed: verso top: in lead: portrait of Hans Thoma; Hans Thoma; 1910 (lt. Oehmen); portrait photography; portrait; artist; portrait; self-portrait of an artist; portrait; self-portrait of a painter; arm positions; gestures; beard; Hans Thoma; At the beginning of the 20th century; Hugo Erfurth; along with Rudolph D黨rkoop and Nicola Perscheid; was one of the most famous professional photographers in Germany. After completing an apprenticeship as a photographer; he opened his own studio in Dresden at the age of only 22. Soon Erfurth orientated himself towards the up-and-coming pictorialist photography; participated in numerous amateur photographic exhibitions from 1894 onwards and managed to make a name for himself both as an artistically ennobled amateur and successful professional photographer. Portraits are central to his work; which he began taking in 1906 in his new studio; a classicist palace; in a stylishly elegant ambience; appealing to the wealthy bourgeoisie. He also produced numerous portraits of famous personalities; including K鋞he Kollwitz; Otto Dix and Joachim Ringelnatz. While his studies around 1905 still show full-length figures depicted in an atmospheric way; from the 1920s onward the focus is on the face; which is photographed against a simple monochrome background. Here; his pictorial approach corresponds to the portrait of classical modernism; whereby the technique of oil printing emphasizes the softness and materiality of the pigments and at the same time places the portraits in the art-photographic tradition. Erfurth is a co-founder of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner