Andreas Heumann Artist

Andreas Heumann (born 1946) is a photographer and painter, born in Munich and brought up in Switzerland. On leaving school he began an apprenticeship in Bern to study block-making and printing. He stayed there for four years which gave him the knowledge of colour which was invaluable in his later work and of course in his painting. Although he had always wanted to paint and had had ambition to go to Florence to study it was photography that initially captured his imagination and led him to London via short stints in Paris and New York. Photographers like Alfred Stieglitz, Avedon, André Kertész, Weston, Edward Steichen and Henri Cartier-Bresson influenced his early work.Once in London, he started to do Reportage and Fashion photography working on assignments for magazines such as Stern, Vogue, Twen, Harper's Magazine and many others. It was then that he was spotted by the advertising industry and since then he has worked on over twelve hundred advertising campaigns, both national and international. Advertising discovered the potential of his images and this helped to make his name into one of the most prolific and successful in the industry - his artistic style has won him over a hundred awards.Each print is a unique work, emphasizing Heumann's absorption with the artistic side of photography. The final results have been fastidiously worked on, revealing a sensitive feel for the medium. But, as Heumann said during an interview in "Techniques of Masters" (worldwide satellite TV series, sponsored by Kodak): "A bad picture will always be a bad picture, no technique will save or improve it. It is not style or technique that makes the image. It is the thought and the interpretation of an experience in life, our seven senses, which have to be translated into a picture. The technique is only a tool for enhancement of a thought".Andreas Heumann has been described as ‘one of the great natural photographers of our time and certainly one of the most influential’. He is already well known in the advertising industry through thousands of campaigns ranging from the sexy Aristoc images; the Nike campaign showing runners in the dark African bush and his many varied and dramatic shots for the automobile industry.