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Emma Kirchner (born Johanna Frederika Doris Emma Kirchner; 30 March 1830 – 10 February 1909) was a German photographer who lived and worked in the Netherlands. She was the first, and for over 30 years, the only professional woman photographer working in Delft and the surrounding area.
At the age of 22, Emma Kirchner gave birth to her daughter Elisa Augusta Doris Ida (called Doris) on 26 December 1852. The father was the Leipzig publisher and bookseller Rudolph Löes, but they did not marry. Her sister Maria had also given birth to a daughter, Emma, a few days earlier.
Due to the location of her home and her mother's place of work in Leipzig, the local early photographic studios are thought to have been a familiar sight to and influence on Emma Kirchner. On 19 August 1839 Louis Daguerre had published a photographic process, the daguerreotype, released for free use internationally (except in England and Wales). There is evidence of its use in Leipzig that yearThomas Liebscher (Hrsg.): Leipzig. Fotografie seit 1839. Ausstellungskatalog, Passage-Verlag, Leipzig 2011, retrieved 9 February 2020. and of printed instructions for taking photographs using the daguerreotype being published in the city.
There was a photographic studio in the Große Fleischergasse, the street where Kirchner's mother ran her tailor's shop.Gerlinde Kämmerer: Wehnert-Beckmann, Bertha Ernestine Henriette (geborene Beckmann). Website der Stadt Leipzig, Datenbank Leipziger Frauenporträts, retrieved 8 February 2020. Not far away at Burgstraße 8, Europe's first professional woman photographer, Bertha Wehnert-Beckmann, like Kirchner the daughter of a tailor, ran her photographic studio. Beckmann had previously worked in Dresden and travelled as a self employed photographer, opening her studio in 1843 with daguerreotypist Eduard Wehnert who she then married. By 1847 Wehnert-Beckmann was widowed and ran her Leipzig studio with employees. From 1849 to 1851 she worked in New York in her own successful photo studio on Broadway, then on her return to Leipzig, she bought a property in a good residential area and had a house with a studio built.Jens Kassner: Europas erste Berufsfotografin - Opulentes Buch stellt Bertha Wehnert-Beckmann vor. Artikel aus der Leipziger Volkszeitung 23 April 2014, retrieved 9 February 2020. Researchers assume that Emma Kirchner received her training as a photographer from Wehnert-Beckmann, but there is no definitive evidence for this.
In 1849, the writer and women's rights activist Louise Otto-Peters founded and published the women's political weekly Frauen-ZeitungLouise Otto: Neue Bahnen. Ersther Theil, Verlag Herm. Markgraf, Wien 1864. (Digitalisat der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek), retrieved 9 February 2020. in Leipzig until she was effectively banned from the profession by the Lex Otto (the colloquial term for the twelfth paragraph of the press law of the Kingdom of Saxony of 14 March 1851, which prohibited women in Saxony from publishing or co-editing newspapers. The law was named after Otto-Peters and was introduced specifically for her case). Otto-Peters lived permanently in Leipzig from 1860 and published the socially critical novel Neue Bahnen in 1864, in which she addressed the problems of a working, single woman. The novel's lead character received training from an independent photographer with her own studio. Whilst there is no definitive evidence of Kirchner's training or professional photographic activity in Leipzig, she is thought to have learned the photographic craft during this time, as well as the basic knowledge of running a business. When Kirchner moved to the Netherlands, she declared her profession as a photographer upon arrival, and opened her photo studio shortly after.
In September 1871, Kirchner and Gräfe parted as business partners. From then on, her brother-in-law Gräfe worked as a photographer in the same street until 1898, opening a second branch in Rotterdam from 1882 to 1886 and made a name for himself as a Hoflieferant (a purveyor to the court under a royal warrant of appointment) Lithography and printer.
In 1875 Kirchner entered into a new business partnership with Henri de Louw (full name Johannes Hendricus Jacobus de Louw), who married her daughter Doris in July of that year. She had employed him as an apprentice about three years earlier. From then on, the studio advertised vitreous enamel portraits and the enlarging of . In 1876 the younger couple moved into their own flat and had their first child. After about a year of working together under the name Henri de Louw en Emma Kirchner, the business partners separated and de Louw opened his own photography studio at the Koornmarkt in Delft.
Kirchner's mother died in 1878, and her sister Maria in 1883. Kirchner continued to run her own studio until May 1899, when she retired at 69 years old. From 1863 until the end of her working life, she had been the only female professional photographer in Delft and the surrounding area. She sold her studio to Johannes van Doorne. He had been trained by Gräfe and was employed by Kirchner as an assistant from 1890.
After retiring, Kirchner first moved to The Hague, where her daughter Doris's family now lived. After her daughter's divorce in 1901, she moved with her to Amsterdam. She spent the last years of her life with her daughter, living with the family of her granddaughter, who had married the Dutch composer Bernard Zweers.
Emma Kirchner died on 10 February 1909 at the age of 78.
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