Arno Fischer

Arno Fischer was born on April 14, 1927, in Wedding, western borough of Berlin. He studied sculpture at the Berlin Weissensee School of Art and the Berlin State School of Fine Arts. In 1953 he started working as a photolab assistant at the Berlin Weissensee School of Art and later was promoted to head assistant. During that time he created his photo series Situation Berlin, that was suppressed for publication. In the mid 1960’s Fischer became one of the founders and leaders of the society of Eastern German photographers, Direkt. In the 1970’s he worked as a freelance photographer and on commissions for the fashion magazine Sibylle. He also travelled across East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the USA. Later he got a teaching position at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. In 1985 he married his colleague and student Sibylle Bergemann. In 2000 Fischer was awarded with Dr. Erich Salomon Prize of the German Photographic Association. In 2001 he co-founded a school of photography, where he taught until 2006. Arno Fischer died on September 13, 2011, at the age of 84 having outlived his wife by only 10 months.