Photo by Sahm

Atelier (Anton) Sahm, located in München (Munich) in Germany, produced portrait, fashion, theatre and nude photography. From the late 1910s till the 1960s many of Sahm's artists' portraits including pictures of many film stars were used for postcards.


German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 959/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Sahm, München (Munich) / Emelka.

Ellen Kürty a.k.a. Ellen Kürti (1903-1930) was a Hungarian-born actress who had a short career in the Hungarian and German silent cinema. Between 1920 and 1928, she appeared in both leading and supporting roles in over 20 silent films. In 1930, she probably committed suicide.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 959/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Sahm, München. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard. Photo: A. Sahm, München (Munich). Dancers Aldo Dayelma and Betty Steger.

We couldn't find information on Betty Steger or Aldo Dayelma, but in the late 1920s and early 1930s, there was a famous Dayelma Ballet group, that performed e.g. at the Berlin Wintergarten. The later film actress Marianne Winkelstern was discovered among them by Erik Charell.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1189/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Sahm, München (Munich) / Emelka. Bayern Films.

Himansu Rai (1895-1940) was one of the stars of early Indian cinema when India was still a part of the United Kingdom. He often worked with German director-producer Franz Osten. Later Rai became a producer.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4051/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Anton Sahm, München (Munich). Oscar Marion in Waterloo (Karl Grune, 1929).

Oscar Marion (1894-1986) was an Austrian actor and production leader of the silent era and 1930s.

Who was Anton Sahm?

Anton Sahm (1891-1968) was a German-Austrian photographer who lived in Munich from 1919.

He was trained and had worked in Vienna, Budapest, Paris and Munich. Sahm was an apprentice of the well-known Viennese photographers Dora Kallmus (Madame D'Ora) and Carl Pietzner in the 1910s. From 1913 on, he was self-employed. In 1915, Sahm married the 19-year-old Charlotte Bénesi in the Kaisermühlen parish church in Vienna. They had two children.

From 1 February 1917, Sahm took part in the First World War as a pioneer in the Air Force and he received training as a "picture assistant" in the aerial photography department ("Lubia"). In 1919 he settled with his family in Munich and opened an 'Atelier' for portrait, fashion, theatre and nude photography in Türkenstraße 6. This studio became very well-known over the years, particularly in the 1920s.

He initially operated there under the name 'Wiener Kunst-Salon, Photo- und farbige Bildnisse'. Among the personalities he photographed, some of whose portraits Sahm also published as postcards by his own publishing house, were the opera singers Felicie Hüni-Mihacsek, Fritzi Jokl, Anny van Kruyswyk and Nelly Merz, the singers Peter Anders and Alfred Jerger, the conductors Karl Böhm and Paul Schmitz, the comedian Karl Valentin, the writers Hans Carossa and Max Brod, the poster artist Ludwig Hohlwein and Adolf Hitler's lover and later wife Eva Braun.

In 1961, the reasons for the special quality of Sahm's work were outlined in the trade magazine International Photo Technik. One photo shows Sahm during a meeting with the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and also the portrait that was created. The simple surroundings and hardly any props in the studio allowed both the sitter and the photographer to concentrate fully on the jointly created portrait. After the death of Anton Sahm in 1968, his son Walter Sahm took over the studio in 1969, and after him Toni Sahm.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4052/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Anton Sahm, München.

German actor Otto Gebühr (1877-1954) appeared in 102 films between 1917 and 1962 (!). He is best known for his interpretation of Friedrich II (Frederick the Great), a role he played in 16 films and countless stage performances. He was one the most famous actors of the Weimar period, and thanks to his authoritative roles the Nazis gave him the title Actor of the State.


German postcard. by Ross Verlag, no. 6178/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Sahm, München.

Handsome Italian-German actor Enrico Benfer / Friedrich Benfer / Federico Benfer (1905-1996) worked in Germany as well as in Italy and other European countries. He often co-starred with his later wife, Jenny Jugo.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9490/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Atelier Anton Sahm, München.

German stage and film actress Heli Finkenzeller (1914-1991) had her greatest successes in popular Ufa comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. After the war, she often played mother roles.


German postcard by ISV, no. H 1. Photo: Sahm.

In the 1950s and 1960s, attractive actress Marianne Hold (1933-1994) became the queen of the Heimatfilm - the romantic German film genre set in rural, especially Alpine, areas.

Source: Wikipedia (German).