Walde Huth, born in Stuttgart in 1923, grew up in Esslingen, where her father worked as an engineer. She completed her photography apprenticeship in Weimar at the State College of Architecture, Visual Arts, and Craft. The photography class was led by Walter Hege, and at the end she received an apprenticeship diploma. Walde Huth spent the final years of the Second World War at the Wolfen film factory, with occasional work as a still photographer for major colour films. The young photographer returned to her family in Esslingen, worked as an industrial photographer at the Esslingen machine factory, and was commissioned by the French occupational forces in the summer of 1945 to provide citizens and refugees with passport photos for their identification cards. At the same time, she began turning to the theatre, which she had held a great affinity for since kindergarten. This resulted in scenic images as well as portraits, such as that of the dancer Harald Kreutzberg – one of her most famous images.
Starting in 1948 she began operating her own studio in Esslingen, which she briefly relocated to Stuttgart in 1953. The culturally minded French occupational administration allowed her to travel to Paris for the first time in 1949, where she immediately began to immerse herself in the world of haute couture. The charming and elegant shots she took, for which she is now so famous, followed close behind: Dresses by Jacques Fath and other designers, almost palpable and nearly always taken outdoors in front of famous Parisian backdrops, so that the moneyed southwest German clientele would be enticed by the new fabrics and fashion trends and know where they came from. Some of these pictures, as well as her portraits, were presented to the renowned Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner (GDL) in 1950 – likely at the behest of her mentor Walter Hege – whereupon she was quickly admitted to this elite association of professional photographers.
The Director of the GDL Photography Commission for over two decades was architectural photographer Karl Hugo Schmölz of Cologne, and the two quickly started spending more time together. They married in 1956, moved into their shared studio in Cologne’s Südpark in 1958, and founded the photography workshop schmölz + huth (written in lower-case, as was stylish at the time). The two rarely worked together, and – depending on the work – had their own teams. Other teams for other customers and fields would follow. Between 1960 and 1972, the company was one of the larger photography companies in West Germany, whereafter business settled down. They presented their results at the GDL Assembly every year as well as at larger exhibitions. The women’s rights movement of the 1970s learned of her talents and exhibited her works numerous times, and her work was increasingly recognised as art.
Following Schmölz’s death in 1986, she dissolved their joint studio and continued working on numerous personal projects, not all of which were successful. In the final years of her life she was virtually omnipresent in the Cologne art and cultural scene. She was vocal about her opinions, even though they did not always align with the majority; thankfully she was still able to see her work be recognised in publications and exhibitions. Walde Huth died as a result of a fire in her flat on 11/11/2011.