Background
Walter Nurnberg was born on April 18, 1907, in Berlin, Germany. He was brought up in Berlin.
Walter Nurnberg
1974
Order of the British Empire
Reimann School of Art
1952
1953
1953
1953
1958
1959
1962
1962
Walter Nurnberg was born on April 18, 1907, in Berlin, Germany. He was brought up in Berlin.
Originally, Walter Nurnberg hoped to become a musician, but later he turned towards advertising instead. He began studying photography in 1930 at the Reimann School in Berlin. On graduating, he took a job at a Berlin advertising agency. He learned fast and applied the Bauhaus-influenced lighting principles he had studied at the school.
Walter Nurnberg moved to England in 1933 and opened his own advertising studio in London. His first big assignment was to advertise GPO greetings telegrams. Later he joined Kraszna-Krausz's stable of writers at the Focal Press. Ultimately, however, he became one of post-war Britain's outstanding industrial photographers, applying a modernistic, sometimes abstract vision to the representation of objects and processes. In 1937, when the Reimann School was driven out of Germany by the Nazis, it re-established itself in London. Here, Walter Nurnberg became a part-time teacher.
With the declaration of war in September 1939, Walter Nurnberg became an enemy alien in Britain, and his cameras were confiscated. They were returned to him in 1940. However, Nurnberg was made an 'honorary Briton' and served in the Army until 1944, when he was invalided out on medical grounds.
After the Second World War, Walter Nurnberg saw the coming changes in manufacturing and became an outstanding industrial photographer, his style taking into consideration the design and function of his subjects. Rebuilding his career, he became a naturalized British subject in 1947. In 1968 he became head of the Guildford School of Photography, later part of the West Surrey College of Art and Design. Walter Nurnberg taught at Polytechnic of Central London and among his students were the likes of Chris Cook in 1974. His teaching was inspirational majoring on the philosophy and psychology of photography.
The value of Nurnberg’s contribution to 20th-century photography is twofold. Firstly, by doggedly sticking to his lighting principles, creating memorable black and white images for the printed page Walter Nurnberg did much to boost the image and confidence of the British industry. More importantly, his work challenged and inspired those who followed. The best of them have sought and found new creative ways to convey the vitality and power of the fast-changing face of the world industry.
Walter Nurnberg received an O.B.E. for his contribution to industrial photography and photographic education.
Two chemists with an electron microscope, British Titan, Billingham
1962Sparks fly from hot steel rail line as it is cut in the machine by the worker, Sheffield
1962A distillery man prepares a peat fire used in furnace to heat containers
Women making electric motors, for vacuum cleaners, Hoover
1959Two engineers inspect cogs of a large frigate gear assembly
1958Stretching leather, master and apprentice, Leather works
1952Three men at Lyle and Scott pack sweaters for export to Stockholm
1953Man with sweaters and cardboard stiffeners at Lyle and Scott
1953Brewery worker at Taylor Walker casts a vast shadow as he cleans a coffer
A woman in pinny threads knitting machine at Lyle and Scott
1953
