Photography by Konrad Helbig

German photographer and archaeologist, Konrad Helbig was born in 1917 in Leipzig, Germany. He was a soldier fighting in the Soviet Union during World War II, was taken in captivity by the Soviet Union, and held until his release in 1947. 

Upon his release, Helbig poured himself into the study of art history and archaeology, especially of the Mediterranean region. After graduation, he worked as writer and photographer for the German travel and cultural magazines “Merian” and “Atlantis”, relating in-depth the nuances of the history, geography, people, and culture of the region to his readers.

Best known for his black-and-white images of young Sicilian men. Helbig posed his subjects, photographing both nude and clothed models, in brightly lit, typically Italian landscapes. His profound knowledge of Mediterranean cultures and the tradition of earlier German photographers, such as Baron William von Gioeden and Guglielmo von Plüscho, can be readily seen throughout his body of work. 

Helbig saw his subjects as incarnating the myth of pre-industrial and Arcadian culture, with its unspoiled, harmonious atmosphere. The postures and forms of Helbig’s nudes are composed from a formal point of view directly related to the classical artistic perfection of Greek and Roman sculptures. In a trial volume for publication compiled in collaboration with the archaeologist Herbert von Buttlar, Helbig interspersed these portraits with images of ancient bronze sculptures

Konrad Helbig’s first published photo collection was his volume on Sicily in 1956, followed by collaborative collections with Karl Heinz Hoenig in 1959 and photographer Toni Schneiders, entitled “Archipelagus”, in 1962. One of Helbig’s best-known collections is “Homo Sun (I am Human)’, published posthumously in 2003, which surveys his boldest erotic work from the 1950s and 1960s. 

Konrad Helbig died in Mainz, West Germany, in February of 1986 at the age of sixty-eight. Notably, the nude photographs for which he is now most famous were discovered posthumously at his home in Mainz.

The photographic works of Konrad Helbig are in the archives of Dresden’s Deutsche Fotothek, which includes 160,000 shots, of which 60,000 are color slides,. Additional works are in the photo archive of Germany’s University of Marsburg, which contains 23,800 shots, of which 11,000 are photographs of Greece and 6,000 of Italy.  Helbig’s work can also be found in the State Archive Hamburg, as well as private foundations and museums in Germany. 

Top Insert Image: Konrad Helbig, “Young Boy in Water, Sicily”, circa 1950-1959, Gelatin Silver Print, 30.5 x 24 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Konrad Helbig, Untitled, (Young Man with Sculpture, Sicily), circa 1950-1959, Gelatin Silver Print