A pleasing landscape view of a path between towering pine trees.

Gustav E. B. Trinks: 1871-1967

Originally from the city of Joinville in Southern Brazil, Trinks: “moved to Hamburg in 1880. He was co-owner of an import and export company. From 1895 he was a full member of the Society for the Promotion of Amateur Photography in Hamburg. In the courses of the (-›) Hofmeister brothers he learned the technique of rubber printing. Trinks belonged to the Hamburg School.” (1.)

Gustav Trinks was born in Brazil but went to school in Germany at the age of nine. He set up a company in Hamburg and continued in business until 1943.

He was a member of the Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Amateur-Photographie (Society for the Promotion of Amateur Photography) and took part in the Hamburg Exhibitions from 1895 to 1900, and in 1902. In 1899 he made the image for the cover of the catalogue, for which he won a prix d’honneur. A year later he received a prix du progres. He learned the gum process from the brothers Theodor and Oskar Hofmeister, but he stuck to smaller formats and was especially interested in effects of contrast, sometimes reversed. His most famous image is Colored Shadows (fig. 66 and cover), in which the shadows of the tree trunks create an effect that is atmospheric and almost abstract. In 1948 Trinks returned to his birthplace, a town founded by his grandfather. (2.)

1. Biography: Gustav E. B. Trinks: Kunstphotographie Um 1900: Die Sammlung Ernst Juhl; Hamburg: Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1989, p. 293

2. Biography: Gustav E.B. Trinks: by Kristina Lowis: Impressionist Camera: Pictorial Photography in Europe, 1888-1918 : Merrell Publishers : 2006 : p. 310