Background
Georg Reisner was born on December 9, 1911, in Wrocław, Poland.
Georg Reisner was born on December 9, 1911, in Wrocław, Poland.
After graduation from the Gymnasium in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), Georg Reisner studied medicine and later law at the universities of Breslau and Freiburg. He studied photography (in Paris) in 1933 and 1934.
Georg Reisner started freelancing in 1934, traveling to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. In 1935 he opened a photographic studio with Hans Namuth in Mallorca, Spain, then another in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. He covered the Spanish Civil War as a photojournalist in 1936-1937, then did photojournalism in Paris until the outbreak of World War II, contributing to Life and other magazines. Jailed by the French in 1939, Georg Reisner escaped to Marseilles, where he committed suicide in order to avoid internment at Les Milles, a French concentration camp.
Georg Reisner was also a highly talented amateur musician, and in 1928 he completed a unique piano score of Mahler's Fourth Symphony which was lauded by the renowned German conductor Otto Klemperer.
Quotes from others about the person
An innovative photojournalist, Georg Reisner had "technical brilliance" and a fine "sense of composition and style," according to Namuth, with whom he collaborated on his photographs of the Spanish Civil War.