Collection of Avant-garde Photographs by the Photographer Robert Ziller

Collection of Avant-garde Photographs by the Photographer Robert Ziller
66 photographs by the photographer Robert Ziller.
~ 48 photographs taken in France, Italy, Germany and Israel, early 1930s. The photographs, all black and white, depict urban and nature scenes photographed in Paris, Seine, Milano, Berlin and Haifa. All are stamped on the back: "Publication only by Phot. R. Ziller". Pasted on the reverse side of some photographs are paper labels with a description of the photograph and with the name Ziller. A few photographs have handwritten descriptions on the back. Size: 13X20 cm – 17X23 cm. Generally good condition. Stains, glue remnants or paper labels on the reverse.One photograph is missing one corner. Several photographs have damage to margins.
~ 16 color photographs taken in Germany, Austria, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and India, 1970s-80s (prints from 2006). Unstamped. 9X13.5 cm. Very good condition. Seven have descriptions on the back.
~ Two black and white photographs. Not stamped or described. 20.5X25 cm. Good condition.
The impact of the German expressionist films can be clearly discerned in Ziller's photographs from the beginning of the 1930s as well as the Avant-garde esthetic influence of the New Vision and the New Objectivity movements which are expressed in emphasis on the independent artistic qualities of photography as a modern technological medium.
Robert Ziller was born in Berlin in January 1914. After concluding his secondary school studies, he began to serve as an assistant to a photographer in the UFA studios in Berlin. There he worked with the leading expressionist cinematographers of his time such as the film-directors Fritz Lang, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Hans Schwartz, the Jewish-German movie photographer Eugen Schüfftan and others. In 1933, with the rise of the Nazi party, and because he was a Jew, Ziller left Berlin for Paris, there he worked on full-length movies with Eugen Schüfftan (who also escaped to France that year), but since he wasn't successful in extending his work permit, he left France in 1934 and immigrated to Eretz Israel.
Ziller was 20 years old when he reached Eretz Israel. In the beginning he worked as an agriculturist. Eventually, he returned to his professional occupation and worked as a newspaper photographer. During the 40s, he returned to his occupation in the film industry and photographed documentary films for the JNF. He worked with Helmar Lerski on the film Adama (the first full-length film photographed in Eretz Israel), Yaldei HaShemesh, Mangina Ivrit and Kupat Cholim, with the cinematographer Herbert Klein on his film Beit Avi as well as with the photographer Floyd Crosby. During World War II, he joined the British Royal Air Force and served as an army photographer in Africa, Italy, France, England and Germany. In 1947, immigrated to England and lived in London. There he worked primarily on documentary films. In 1951, moved to the US and settled in New York. Photographed the European scenes for Alfred Hitchcock's film Torn Curtain and worked many years as a photographer for the UN. During his worldwide travels on behalf of the UN, he photographed many films and stills. Ziller died in Litchfield, Connecticut in July 2010.
The films which he photographed in Israel are in the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive in Jerusalem. Since Ziller traveled through many countries, copies of his photographs are rare and even negatives, especially of his early photographs, have been lost. To the best of our knowledge, these photographs (from the 1930s) are Ziller's only stills which remain from that time.
Enclosed: If I Forget Thee, a picture story of modern Palestine, by Meyer Levin. The Viking Press, New York, 1947. 10 photographs by Ziller are printed in the book. His photograph appears on the front cover.