2023-11-27 19:31:48
The fine art of the portrait is to show the person behind the face – regardless of whether it is painted or photographed. Konrad R. Müller could do this like no other. So it was no coincidence that all of the Federal Republic’s previous heads of government, from Adenauer to Scholz, came to the “Chancellor Photographer” to have their photos taken. His photographs have shaped the image that Germans have of their most important politicians for decades.
Born on March 22, 1940 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Müller grew up in the Catholic diaspora of the now divided former capital and, after soon abandoning his studies in painting at the University of the Arts, decided to become a photographer.
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That already had to do with a Federal Chancellor: “I was fascinated by Konrad Adenauer’s face,” Müller told WELT in 1974 on the occasion of an exhibition with photographs of the five Federal Chancellors at the time in Hamburg. During the 1965 federal election campaign, he almost “followed” the founding chancellor and gained intensive experience with the “psychology of a face”.
Iconic Erhard images
Almost a year later, Rainer Barzel, the CDU’s next man at the time, introduced Müller to the former chancellor. Coincidentally, on the photographer’s 26th birthday, March 22, 1966, he took the first of his classic Adenauer portraits at the CDU party conference in Bonn: photographed over the 90-year-old’s left shoulder, in harsh light that did not embellish or soften anything.
The recording was liked, so Adenauer invited the self-taught Müller to visit him in Cadenabbia, his vacation spot. Other “typical” Müller portraits were taken there: close to the face, often filling the image, always black and white, almost always on medium format material with excellent resolution and usually with almost merciless light. The illustrated book “Konrad & Konrad” about “Encounters of the photographer Konrad Rufus Müller with the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer 1963 to 1967” from the Cologne Greven-Verlag is currently in print (to be published in December 2023, 80 pages, 20 euros).
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From then on, Müller couldn’t let the subject of chancellor go, and so he used the insights he gained from meetings with Adenauer with all of his successors. For example, he took two iconic pictures of Ludwig Erhard – a photo in which the hapless second chancellor completely covered his mouth with his right hand, which only showed the eyes and nose area – and yet the whole person. The second important Erhard photograph was taken ten years later, in 1977, and shows him head-on. The least known is the portrait of Kurt Georg Kiesinger, the chancellor of the first grand coalition. It is in the style of Adenauer’s portraits and shows a thoughtful head of government.
Worked on cabbage
The job as a portrait photographer also brought unexpected insights with it: “I adored this man,” Müller wrote about Willy Brandt and continued: “But the ‘Willy’ so called by millions has always remained a stranger to me over the years .” Although the Social Democrat let Müller get close to him and invited him to his wife Rut’s house in Hamar, Norway.
The photographer managed to create perhaps the most typical portrait of Helmut Schmidt: slightly sullen, with his arms crossed, the Prince Henry hat on his head, he looks out of the picture into the future like a visionary. Another portrait shows the “maker” of German politics in 1978 backlit – very dark and yet immediately recognizable.
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For many years, Müller repeatedly accompanied the next head of government, Helmut Kohl. “I worked on this chancellor,” Müller recalled. For Kohl’s 60th birthday, he put together an illustrated book, with more than 60 photos and an essay by Peter Scholl-Latour. At the launch, Christoph Stölzl, the founding director of the German Historical Museum initiated by Kohl, praised the illustrated book and called the 140 pages an “extraordinary study on the relationship between politics and photography”. WELT illustrated several Chancellor interviews with portraits of Müller and praised his depictions: “Konrad R. Müller photographed the person Helmut Kohl, taking him out of the stereotypes we are used to on television and off the celebrity pedestal.”
musicians and authors
But photographing the Chancellor was only Müller’s best-known activity. He also took countless portraits of celebrities, musicians as well as actors, authors, TV stars and many others. German and international magazines also commissioned him to do photo series, often landscape photography. He wasn’t above doing a series about the oldest dogs in Germany and even took a snapshot of musicians from the Munich Philharmonic (from behind, of course) in the urinal of a concert hall in London – recognizable by their tails and the one tucked under their arm Horn.
Like his colleagues Sven Simon (alias of Axel Springer Jr., 1941–1980) and Jupp Darchinger (1925–2013), Konrad R. Müller was one of the great photographers in the Federal Republic. What they had in common, despite all the stylistic differences, was a feeling for the special perspective and the right moment: the crucial thing is to recognize the person behind the face. Last Saturday, Konrad R. Müller died in his adopted home of Königswinter at the age of 83 – while his last illustrated book is currently being printed, which he will no longer be able to see himself.
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