Volkmar Wentzel - Family, Death, and Legacy

Family, Death, and Legacy

Wentzel produced photographs for himself as well as for the National Geographic. During his lifetime, he created more than 12,000 of his own images. Wentzel's photography was exhibited by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Royal Photographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution, the Washington Center for Photography, and the West Virginia Cultural Center, among others. His prints have also been displayed in numerous private galleries around the world, and have sold for thousands of dollars each.

His photographic works also won awards. In 1950, the White House News Photographers Association (WHNPA) awarded one of his photos third place in the "Personalities" category. His 1958 photograph of a quadrille on New Year's Eve at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C., won first place from WHNPA. On August 16, 1960, an automatic camera of Wentzel’s captured Captain Joseph Kittinger making a 102,800 foot (31,333 m) skydive which set the record for the highest parachute jump of all time. WHNPA also gave this image a first prize. In 2003, the state of West Virginia named him one of 55 "History Heroes" for helping to document, preserve, and promote the state's history.

Wentzel's work is highly acclaimed. Fellow National Geographic photographer Thomas Y. Canby called him an innovative, brilliant, "great man". Jane Livingston, chief curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, said his career was a "prolonged, quiet unfolding of genius." Among his more notable photographic articles were:

• "Washington, D.C.: The Nation's Capital by Night" (National Geographic, April 1940).
• "Atlantic Odyssey: Iceland to Antarctica" (National Geographic, December 1955)
• "History Awakens at Harpers Ferry" (National Geographic, March 1957).
• "The White Horses of Vienna" (National Geographic, September 1958)
• "Life in Walled-Off Berlin" (National Geographic, June 1961)
• "Mozambique: Land of the Good People" (National Geographic, August 1964)

His photographs were also featured in three books:

• Washington By Night, (1992) edited by James Goode.
• Odysseys and Photographs: Four National Geographic Field Men: Maynard Owen Williams, Luis Marden, Volkmar Wentzel, Thomas Abercrombie, (2008) by Leah Bendavid-Val.
• In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits, (2010) by the editors of National Geographic.

Wentzel was often asked how he managed to put his subjects at such ease while photographing them. He observed that he read as many ethnographic studies of a region as possible, to avoid making culturally insensitive errors. He also tried to pick up a few words of the local language, and be as courteous as possible. He said that he often made friends with the people he was photographing. "After we got to be friends, I would just back up and take the picture. That was a good part of my technique," he said. He also brought a small musical box along with him, which helped to ease suspicion and win friends (especially among children). His choice of equipment also influenced his style. Wentzel told an interviewer in 1999 that, while in Africa, he used only lightweight 35 mm film cameras such as a Nikon or an Olympus OM-2. For more formal portraits, however, he used an 85mm portrait lens and Kodachrome film. When printing his photographs, he preferred the Ilfochrome process (which turned photographic slides into prints) and the gelatin silver print process.

Wentzel married Viola Kiesinger, daughter of German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. The couple had three children: Cecilia, Christina, and Peter. Wentzel died of a heart attack on May 10, 2006, at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C.