Helmut Gritscher

Helmut Gritscher was born 7 June 1933 in Wattens, in the Austrian Tyrol. A ski instructor, he traveled and worked in the mountains of Europe, Lebanon, and the United StatesPaul Carpenter, The Snowy: where time turned back,' The Sydney Morning Herald, Sun, May 12, 196 p. 98 before moving to Australia in 1961 to join the Perisher Ski School in the Mt. Kosciuszko ski fields{{Cite web|title=Instructors|url=https://perisherhistory.org.au/emuseum/instructors/|access-date=2020-12-12|website=Perisher Historical Society|language=en-AU}}{{Citation | author1=Hueneke, Klaus | title=Kosciusko : where the ice-trees burn | year=1990 | publication-date=1990 | publisher=Tabletop Press | isbn=978-0-9590841-1-5}} and producing his first book, Skiing, on ski technique, with fellow instructor Fritz Halbwidl.reviewed in Wausau Daily Herald, Wednesday 29 Jul 1970, p.20

Gritscher stayed in Australia because he "wanted to photograph something which has only been partly explored visually" to produce his second book, The High Country, on the Australian Alps photographed in winter and summer, for which he asked Craig McGregor to write the text.{{Citation | author1=McGregor, Craig | title=Left hand drive : a social and political memoir | publication-date=2013 | publisher=Affirm Press ; North Sydney : Random House Australia [Distributor] | isbn=978-1-922213-08-2}} Of the process of taking the photographs he remembered, "with every day I spent in those mountains I discovered more beautiful things, and my life became richer,"{{Cite book|last=McGregor|first=Craig|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/72963|title=In the making|date=1969|publisher=Thomas Nelson (Australia)|isbn=0-17-001819-9|location=Melbourne|pages=|oclc=72963}} sentiments on which he elaborated in an interview:

{{quotation|"Some of the world's most wonderful and bizarre trees are here, unmatched in their variety of colour, texture, and shape. The most fascinating discovery for me was the huge stretches of untouched land I saw when I walked through and camped on the lonely high plains ... There was not one sign that a human being had walked there before; only the weird and unreal shapes of dead trees and rocks and an unspeakable quietness and melancholy over the whole land."Paul Carpenter, The Snowy: where time turned back,' The Sydney Morning Herald, Sun, May 12, 196 p. 98}}

His subjects in the Alps included not only skiers and the landscape, but also the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric project.

To Sydney with Love, his third book, took as its subject Sydney's beaches and harbour, and there he photographed the older suburbs, rugby, the Sydney Opera House, and various cultural events.{{Cite book|last1=Gritscher|first1=Helmut|url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1852450?from=list|title=To Sydney with love|last2=McGregor|first2=Craig|date=1968|publisher=Nelson (Australia)|location=Melbourne}}

Gristcher's photographs were published frequently for articles and covers in Walkabout{{Citation | author1=Australian Geographical Society | title=The Dream That Is Mount Townsend | journal=Walkabout | publication-date=1966-06-01 | publisher=Australian National Travel Association | volume=32 | issue=6 | issn=0043-0064}} as well as Pacific Islands Monthly, and he was profiled in Craig McGregor's 1969 survey of Australian arts In The Making.{{Citation | author1=McGregor, Craig | author2=McGregor, Craig, 1933– | title=In the making | year=1969 | publication-date=1969 | publisher=Thomas Nelson (Australia) | isbn=978-0-17-001819-7}}

Returning to Europe in 1970, Gritscher continued to produce illustrations there for ski stories.George Bush, photos by Helmut Gritscher, "Innsbruck, Skiing's Capital City", Skiing, Dec 1972, Vol. 25, No. 4, {{ISSN|0037-6264}}Bill Tanler, photos by Helmut Gritscher, "Preview: The FIS World Alpine Championships," Skiing, Feb 1978, Vol. 30, No. 6, {{ISSN|0037-6264}}John Skow, photos by Helmut Gritscher, "A Schladming Sampler," Skiing, Jan 1979, Vol. 31, No. 5, {{ISSN|0037-6264}} and he was represented by Aspect picture library, London, which distributed his photographs to publishers including Life books, Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated{{Cite journal |date=10 November 2003 |title=The Photographers |journal=Sports Illustrated |volume=99 |issue=18 |issn=0038822X }}{{Cite journal |last=Gritscher |first=Helmut |date=23 January 1978 |title=For The Record : A roundup of the week Jan. 9-15 |journal=Sports Illustrated |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=33, 34, 35, 36 |issn=0038822X }}{{Cite journal |date=13 February 1978 |title=For The Record : A roundup of the week |journal=Sports Illustrated |volume=48 |issue=8 |pages=24 |issn=0038822X }}{{Cite journal |date=17 February 1977 |title=Football |journal=Sports Illustrated |volume=46 |issue=8 |issn=0038822X }} (including covers of issues from 2 and 16 February 1976),{{Cite journal |date=28 March 1990 |title=SI Cover Credits : Here is the name of every photographer and artist whose work appeared on the 1,846 covers in this issue |journal=Sports Illustrated |volume=72 |issue=13 |issn=0038822X }} and National Geographic into the 1990s.photographer and agency credit in: The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 04 Jan 1986, p. 92photographer and agency credit in: Blashfield, J. F. (1999). Italy. United States: Children's Press. The publisher of Sports Illustrated amusingly recounts in a 1976 issue how, during the shooting of a group photo, Helmut's car came to be forcibly removed by a platoon of Austrian soldiers in front of the Bergisel ski-jumping stadium.{{Cite journal |last=Meyers |first=John A. |date=23 February 1976 |title=Letter From The Publisher |journal=Sports Illustrated |volume=44 |issue=8 |issn=0038822X}}

Gritscher died, aged 82, on 24 November 2015 in his home town of Wattens, Austria where his ashes are interred, and was survived by his wife Gerda, sons Thomas and Andreas, and siblings Paula and Herbert.{{Cite web|last=Tageszeitung|first=Tiroler|date=|title=Traueranzeige von Helmut Gritscher vom 29.11.2015 {{!}} Tiroler Tageszeitung|url=https://traueranzeigen.tt.com/traueranzeige/2446835-helmut-gritscher.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-12|website=Traueranzeigen {{!}} Tiroler Tageszeitung|language=de}}

Peter Fenton, in reviewing The High Country for The Age writes that "Gritscher's camera work which dominates 'The High Country' and, ipso facto, gives the book a rather stronger coffee-table flavour, is generally as first-class as we expect of him. Occasionally it is beyond adjectives, notably his color, in which his flair for catching the play of light on snowy mountaintops, sheep's backs, birds' feathers, alpine flowers, boulders chalets, trees and other objects is impressively expressed."Peter Fenton, "The Book that came for coffee", The Age, Saturday 27 Jan 1968, p.19

Craig McGregor regarded Gritscher as amongst a few who had "made the crucial breakthrough in Australian photography",Craig McGregor, "They have begun to look deeply beneath the country's surface," The Sydney Morning Herald Saturday, 01 Jun 1968, p.17 and in In The Making records that another photographer commented "Helmut has a love affair with every subject he takes." He worked alongside, and as the equal of, significant Australian practitioners; photographs by Gritscher were purchased, with those of David Beal, David Moore, Lance Nelson and Richard Woldendorp in 1969 for the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne through the KODAK (Australasia) Pty Ltd Fund.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Artists – Helmut Gritscher |url=https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/2040/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-12|website=National Gallery of Victoria}}

• 1969, December; group show with other works from the NGV collection by David Beal, David Moore, Lance Nelson and Richard Woldendorp, National Gallery of Victoria.Ann Galbally, The Age, Wednesday 10 Dec 1969, p. 2

• {{Citation | author1=Gritscher, Helmut | author2=McGregor, Craig, 1933– | title=The high country : Photographs: Helmut Gritscher | publication-date=1967 | publisher=Angus & Robertson | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/20242711 | access-date=12 December 2020}}
• {{Citation | title=To Sydney with love/ [Photography: Helmut Gritscher. Text: Craig McGregor | publication-date=1968 | publisher=City of Sydney Archives | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/244715979 | access-date=12 December 2020}}Alan Ashbolt, "Through the camera lens", The Sydney Morning Herald, Sat, 22 Feb 1969, p. 21Australian Book Review. Issue 8, 1968, Australia
• {{Citation | author1=Gritscher, Helmut | author2=Wakla, Eric | author3=Halbwidl, Fritz | title=Skiing : a pictorial handbook of instruction | date=1968 | publisher=Ure Smith | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/17168122 | access-date=12 December 2020}}
• Gritscher, H., & New South Wales. (1970). New South Wales, Australia: Professional ski race, Mount Kosciusko. Sydney, N.S.W.: New South Wales Dept. of Tourism.

• {{Citation | author1=Hueneke, Klaus | title=Kosciusko : where the ice-trees burn | year=1990 | publication-date=1990 | publisher=Tabletop Press | isbn=978-0-9590841-1-5}}
• {{Citation | author1=Reader's Digest Association | title=Australia : this land – these people | date=1971 | publisher=Reader's Digest Association | edition=1st | isbn=978-0-909486-04-4}}
• {{Citation | author1=McGregor, Craig | author2=McGregor, Craig, 1933– | author3=Beal, David, 1936- | title=Life in Australia | publication-date=1968 | publisher=Southern Cross International | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8459795 | access-date=12 December 2020}}

• Elyne Mitchell, with photographs by Helmut Gritscher, 'The Dream That Is Mount Townsend,' In Walkabout. Vol. 32 No. 6 (1 June 1966), pp. 16–19, Australian Geographical Society.
• {{Citation | author1=Robin Boyd | title=Australia's Split-Level Culture | journal=Walkabout | publication-date=1963-12-01 | publisher=Australian National Travel Association | volume=29 | issue=12 | issn=0043-0064}}

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Category:Austrian photojournalists

Category:Photography in Australia

Category:1933 births

Category:2015 deaths

Category:Sports photographers

Category:Landscape photographers

Category:20th-century Austrian photographers

Category:21st-century Austrian photographers

Category:Australian photojournalists

Category:People from Tyrol