Hugo Erfurth; Two young monks; Staatliche Landesbildstelle Hamburg; collection on the history of photography; silver gelatin paper; black and white positive process; image size: height: 30.5 cm; width: 23.2 cm; inscribed: verso and left: in blue ink: Hugo Erfurth; stamp: verso and right: HEGE-PHOTO; and in the middle: added by hand in blue ink: B218/7; inscribed: inside left passepartout side below left: in lead: No. B 218/7; Hugo Erfurth; repro no; label: verso passepartout above left: in typescript: No. B218/7; Hugo Erfurth; stamp: verso Passepartout o. l.: handwritten in blue ink added: B218/7; portrait photography; monk(s); portrait; double portrait; full-length portrait; At the beginning of the 20th century; Hugo Erfurth was one of the most famous professional photographers in Germany; alongside Rudolph D黨rkoop and Nicola Perscheid. After completing an apprenticeship as a photographer; he opened his own studio in Dresden at the age of only 22. Soon Erfurth orientated himself towards the up-and-coming pictorialist photography; participated in numerous amateur photographic exhibitions from 1894 onwards and managed to make a name for himself both as an artistically ennobled amateur and successful professional photographer. Portraits are central to his work; which he began taking in 1906 in his new studio; a classicist palace; in a stylishly elegant ambience; appealing to the wealthy bourgeoisie. He also produced numerous portraits of famous personalities; including K鋞he Kollwitz; Otto Dix and Joachim Ringelnatz. While his studies around 1905 still show full-length figures depicted in an atmospheric way; from the 1920s onward the focus is on the face; which is photographed against a simple monochrome background. Here; his pictorial approach corresponds to the portrait of classical modernism; whereby the technique of oil printing emphasizes the softness and materiality of the pigments and at the same time places the portraits in the art-photographic tradition. E