Moritz Nähr

Moriz Nähr (born 4 August 1859 in Vienna; died 29 June 1945 in Vienna) was an Austrian photographer.^[1] Nähr was a friend of the members of the Vienna Secession art group. He is best known for his portraits of Gustav Klimt, Gustav Mahler, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Moriz Nähr with his dog, circa 1890

life

Nähr was the son of Johann Georg Nähr (1812–1872), a dealer and owner of a furniture warehouse, and his wife, Antonia Josefa Neumann (1824–1899). His grandfather, Johann Michael Nähr (1767–1851), came from the Moravian village of Oblas (now part of Oblekovice in the Czech city of Znojmo) and moved to Vienna. Johann Georg Nähr’s family lived in Spittelberg, a municipality incorporated into Vienna in 1850, at number 121 (now Neustiftgasse 11; Nähr's birthplace no longer exists).

After finishing school, Nähr attended the School of Applied Arts for a year and a half between 1875 and 1877, where he met Maximilian Lenz, who remained a close lifelong friend and later became a co-founder of the Vienna Secession. Due to financial constraints, Nähr was initially unable to study painting like his friend Lenz and instead worked in the photography studio of his brother Karl, who was nearly eleven years older, in Schemnitz. After Karl’s early death, Moriz returned to Vienna and enrolled as a guest student at the General Painting School of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1878. He stayed for only two semesters but continued to refer to himself as an academic painter for years.

The 1891 International Exhibition of Artistic Photography in Vienna brought Nähr his first public recognition, particularly for his works *Forest Interior* and *From the Prater*. Since 1893, he had been a member of the Photographic Society, was elected to its board in 1907, and received the Golden Society Medal in vermail in 1910. In 1908, he became a member of the German Werkbund and, in 1912, co-founded the Austrian Werkbund.

Nähr was friends with several members of the Hagenbund and the Vienna Secession. He is known for numerous photographs of the members of these groups and their studios. In 1908, Archduke Franz Ferdinand appointed him court photographer, and he advised Archduchess Isabella on photography. Nähr received many commissions from the Habsburgs, the last in 1917 for a photograph of the five-year-old last Crown Prince, Otto.

His grave is located in Baumgartner Cemetery (K1-41), where his wife Ludmilla and his two sisters are also buried.

Portraits

• 
  Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt
• 
  Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
• 
  Secession Group, Vienna, 1902
• 
  Gustav Mahler
• 
  Grete Wiesenthal, 1906/8