130
Photographs from French
Guinea and Cameroon
by Rudolf and/or Helene Oldenburg
plate glass negatives, and producing prints from
these was a challenging undertaking in a tropical
environment.
Oldenburg’s desire to produce portrait photos
of representatives of various African cultures
may have been stimulated by the currents of social
Darwinism prevalent at the time. Although
his intention was to document “types of people,”
his works also display a distinctly artistic
quality. Visual anthropology considers the triadic
relationship between the photographer, his
subjects or objects, and the beholder, and much
can be gleaned from looking at the Oldenburg
images.
In Oldenburg’s time, the power of the photograph
was becoming increasingly apparent,
and by 1900 a signifi cant demand for postcards
depicting African scenes and people had developed.
As Christraud Geary notes, “Photographers
in Africa grasped the opportunity to serve
a lucrative market for images of the continent,
both locally and worldwide, during the global
postcard craze that peaked around 1900 and
continued several decades.”4 Oldenburg recog-
PORTFOLIO
FIG. 1 (above): Rudolf or
Helene Oldenburg,
H. u. R. Oldenburg im
Garten (H. & R. Oldenburg
in a Garden), 1904–1913.
Silver gelatin print, 16.5 x 12 cm.
Weltmuseum Wien, Fotosammlung,
inv. VF 17684.
FIG. 2 (right): Rudolf or
Helene Oldenburg,
Fetisch-Tänzer (Kopf)
(Fetish Dancer (Head)),
1907–1913.
Silver gelatin print, 11.2 x 16.2 cm.
Weltmuseum Wien, Fotosammlung,
inv. VF 17199.
Rudolf Oldenburg (1879–1932)
was an Austrian national best remembered today
for his extensive photography portfolio
created during his years in Africa in the early
twentieth century. Between 1901 and 1906, he
lived in Conakry in what was then French Guinea,
where he worked as an agent for a German
trading company based in Bremen, and from
1907 to 1913 he was in Cameroon working for
the Deutsche Kamerungesellschaft. His wife,
Helene, née Aichinger (1868–1922), whom he
wed in Vienna in 1904, followed him to French
Guinea a few days after their marriage and became
his close associate, helping with the gathering
of ethnographic specimens as well as the
taking of photographs. A number of photographs
in which Rudolf appears are attributed
to Helene Oldenburg (fi g. 6).1
By 1902, Oldenburg had become acquainted
with physician Rudolf Pöch, who was doing research
on malaria in French Guinea. Oldenburg
helped Pöch with his “anthropometric studies”
and with the preparation of plaster casts of
living models during his stay in Conakry. It is
believed that Pöch fi rst encouraged him to collect
ethnographic objects, although Oldenburg
was interested in all kinds of research and also
collected insects, butterfl ies, and botanical specimens.
He was in contact with Africa specialists,
among them Georg Schweinfurth, and he later
wrote an essay about Bamum for the periodical
Atlantis, which was published in 1929.2 Ethnographic
notes by Helene had previously appeared
in 1922 in a series of three articles for
Österreichische Illustrierte Zeitung;3 however,
the couple’s ethnological forte and main occupation
was their fi eld collecting and photography.
Their photographs were created on gelatin dry-
By Bettina von Lintig