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Lot 160
[PHOTOGRAPHY] Siegfried Franz Spira (1924-2007) inventor and innovator

[PHOTOGRAPHY] Siegfried Franz Spira (1924-2007) was an inventor and innovator in photography as well as a collector of photographic equipment, images, books, and ephemera. He is credited as one of three individuals who opened up the U.S. market to quality Japanese photographic goods. Born in Vienna, Austria, his His father was an official at the Bodencreditanstalt bank and later owned the Photohaus Spira-Ritz. Spira attended the Amerlinggymnasium until after the Anschluß, when he was forced to leave school because of his Jewish heritage. In March 1939, he left Vienna through a Kindertransport rescue mission and, as a result, spent ten months in Doncaster, England, where he attended the Percy Jackson Grammar School. He left England with his father in June 1940, sailing to North America on the SS Antonia, where the two were reunited with Spira's mother, who had arrived in New York on the SS Volendan in February of that year. Spira was also at the "forefront" of the technological revolution in lens attachments having developed a variety of filters and lens accessories that added unusual and special effects to photographs, and was "the most important" supplier of such attachments. Spira began collecting autographs relating to the history of photography in the 1960s. By the end of that decade, he had progressed to collecting historic cameras and was involved in organizing what became the American Photographic Historical Society. TLS, 1986, 1p. expressing interest in buying autographs, documents and other materials related to photography. Also in the market for prints featuring photographers at work. VG. Scarce!

  • Condition: VG

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by East Coast Books
August 25, 2018 10:00 AM EDT
PO Box 849
Wells, ME, US 04090

East Coast Books

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