HANS JORGENSEN
1915-2003


As staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar, Dahl-Wolfe brought the young man into contact with many notable people in the fashion and entertainment fields.  He developed an extraordinary sense for lighting and design under Wolfe’s guidance. He also worked as assistant to the noted photographer George Hoyningen-Huene.
 
    Hans L. Jorgensen was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1915. In high school, he began building stage sets and doing the lighting for the Omaha Community Playhouse Theater, the training ground for Henry Fonda, Dorothy McGuire and other notable performers.  He attended the University of Illinois for two years with a major in Geology and augmented his interest in science with a burgeoning creative impulse.

    A close friend of his relocated to New York to work in the theater and invited Hans to join him. He attended the Clarence H. White School of Photography from 1937 -1938 and served as Treasurer for the school’s Alumni Association in 1941. One of his photographs was selected to illustrate the class’s poster for an exhibition at Rockefeller Center in 1938.

    
  After turning down several offers, he accepted an offer to assist the noted photographer Louise Dahl Wolfe.
 
  
  Just as he was beginning to receive his own commissions from Harper’s, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Before leaving for the war, Hans participated in a Phillipe Halsman photo shoot of actress Rita Hayward. It was later reproduced in Life Magazine’s  50th Anniversary issue in 1986.
He served in the U.S. Army’s Signal Corp as a motion picture cameraman. His unit was attached to the British Army in the campaign in Burma where he served as a war photographer.
 
 
His works was published in Harper’s Bazaar, Jr. Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping magazines.
He is also featured in Pictorialism into Modernism, The Clarence White School of Photography, Rizzoli Publishing, 1996.
 
UNTITLED, COASTAL SCENE, VINTAGE PRINT, c.1960
FASHION PHOTOGRAPH #1, VINTAGE PRINT, c. 1950
LOUISE DAHL WOLFE in ANTIQUE STORE,        VINTAGE PRINT, c. 1940
Copyright 2008-2011 DAVID F. MARTIN/MARTIN-ZAMBITO FINE ART
IMAGE AND TEXT ReproductIon prohibited  without  permission of the gallery.
FASHION PHOTOGRAPH #15, VINTAGE PRINT, 1948
HAIR SALON PHOTOGRAPH #1, VINTAGE PRINT,  c.1948
His brother had been stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington State, during the war and decided to move to Seattle. After the war, Hans visited his brother and decided to move to Seattle as well in 1946. Shortly afterward, he opened his own commercial studio where he conducted a successful career in commercial photography until retiring in 1986.
He was particularly associated with the Seattle department store, Frederick & Nelson for several decades.