Ernst Haas (March 2, 1921 – September 12, 1986) was an Austrian-American photojournalist and color photographer. During his 40-year career Haas trod the line between photojournalism and art photography. In addition to his coverage of events around the globe after World War II Haas was an early innovator in color photography. His images were carried by magazines like Life and Vogue and, in 1962, were the subject of the first single-artist exhibition of color photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He served as president of the cooperative Magnum Photos. His book of volcano photographs, The Creation (1971), remains one of the most successful photography books ever published, selling more than 350,000 copies.
Haas was born in Vienna, Austria, on March 2, 1921. He was the son of Ernst Haas, a high-level civil servant, and Frederike Haas-Zipser. He had an older brother named Fritz Haas.
Haas was raised in the cultural climate of Vienna before World War II. His parents, who placed great value upon education and the arts, encouraged his creative pursuits from an early age. His father enjoyed music and photography, and his mother wrote poetry and aspired to be an artist. Haas's teachers had him act as a judge, rather than a participant, in artistic competitions among his peers. As a painter, he had particular interest in an artwork's formal qualities, and developed a refined sense of composition and perspective.
From 1935 to 1938, Haas attended LEH Grinzing, a private school in Vienna, where he studied art, literature, poetry, philosophy, and science. His formal education was interrupted in 1938, when the school was closed following Germany's invasion of Austria. The following year, Haas received his diploma from Rainer Gymnasium.
Haas was sent to a German army labor camp, working six hours a day in exchange for two daily hours of school attendance. He left the service in 1940 and returned to Vienna to study medicine. Haas was only able to complete one year of medical school before he was forced out as a result of his Jewish ancestry.
Haas was uninterested in learning photography as a child, though his father tried to encourage him. Upon his father's death in 1940, Haas first entered the darkroom, learning to print old family negatives. His interest grew, and he soon began to take his own photographs.
Though his formal education was complicated by the war, Haas was an autodidact and worked to learn the medium. In 1941, as the “school photographer” of the Max Reinhardt Film Seminar, he attended technical classes and developed an interest in filmmaking. Haas also took advantage of his family's extensive library, as well as museums and libraries in Vienna. He studied philosophy and poetry, in particular, both of which informed his beliefs about the creative potential for photography.
A Poet’s Camera selection of photography by Bryan Holme (1946), which combined poetry with metaphoric imagery by artists like Edward Weston, was particularly important to Haas's early development. Many of his first extant photographs—close-ups of plants, water, and natural forms—reflect its influence.
Unsure of his career path, Haas realized that photography could provide both a means of support and a vehicle for communicating his ideas. He obtained his first camera in 1946, at the age of 25, trading a 20-pound block of margarine for a Rolleiflex on the Vienna black market. Of the decision, he later said:
I never really wanted to be a photographer. It slowly grew out of the compromise of a boy who desired to combine two goals—explorer or painter. I wanted to travel, see and experience. What better profession could there be than the one of a photographer, almost a painter in a hurry, overwhelmed by too many constantly changing impressions? But all my inspirational influences came much more from all the arts than from photo magazines.
In 1947 Haas presented his first exhibition at the American Red Cross in Vienna, where he had a part-time position teaching photography to soldiers. Taking a portfolio of his work to Zurich, he drew the interest of Arnold Kübler, the first editor in chief of the magazine Du. After reviewing his photographs, Kübler introduced Haas to Swiss photographer Werner Bischof’s images of Berlin after the war. Influenced by Bischof's work, Haas began to consider how an image could simultaneously tell a story and function as an autonomous work of art. When Haas returned home, he similarly documented the war’s effects in Vienna.
Haas obtained assignments from magazines like Heute, often working with fellow correspondent Inge Morath. In 1947, while scouting locations for a fashion shoot, Haas and Morath witnessed prisoners of war disembarking a train and began documenting their arrival. Haas’s images show the anticipation and grief of people searching for their lost relatives among the survivors. The resulting photo essay, “Homecoming,” was published in both Heute and Life magazine.
Warren Trabant showed Robert Capa, the war photographer, Haas's “Homecoming” photographs before they were published. Upon reviewing his work, Capa invited Haas to travel to Paris and join the international photographic cooperative Magnum Photos, then two years old. Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, David “Chim” Seymour, Werner Bischof, and William Vandivert were already members.
At the same time, Haas was offered a staff photographer position at Life. He decided he did not want to be limited by Life’s restrictive scope. Describing his decision in a letter to Life editor Wilson Hicks, Haas wrote “What I want is to stay free, so that I can carry out my ideas... I don’t think there are many editors who could give me the assignments I give myself...”
After carrying out assignments in Vienna and London, Haas conceived an extensive project about America. Visas to the United States were difficult to obtain, but in 1950 Robert Capa appointed him Magnum's U.S. vice president. With this position, Haas was able to obtain the proper documentation, and he arrived in New York in May of that year. The first images Haas took in the United States showed fellow immigrants arriving at Ellis Island.
By the time of Haas's arrival, the streets of New York had already become a popular subject for photographers who sought to document all aspects of life. His approach was less direct and confrontational than that of colleagues such as Lisette Model and William Klein. Wrote critic A.D. Coleman, “[Haas] was a lyric poet pursuing a photographic equivalent of gestural drawing, utilizing such photographic effects as softness of focus, selective depth of field, and overexposure to telling effect.”
While Haas would continue traveling for his work, he lived the rest of his life in New York City.
In 1952 Haas hitchhiked across the United States to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, planning to photograph Native Americans. Working with the vast area's changing light and clouds, Haas also photographed symbols, local details, and tourist oddities. His finished photo essay, published by Life as “Land of Enchantment” in a six-page spread, was well received by readers and prompted the magazine to initiate another project. According to writer (and early Magnum employee) Inge Bondi, Haas’ Western chronicle was the first major story he created based on his own instinct and at his own financial risk.