Franz Roh

Franz Roh (1890 - 1965), was a German historian, photographer, and art critic.

Roh was born in Apolda (Thuringia), Germany. He studied at universities in Leipzig, Berlin, and Basel. In 1920, he received his Ph.D. in Munich for a work on Dutch paintings of the 17th century.

In his 1925 book Nach Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neusten europäischen Malerei ("After expressionism: problems of the newest European painting") he coined the term magic realism.

During the Nazi regime, he was isolated and briefly put in jail, a time he used to write the book Das Verkannte Künstler: Geschichte und Theorie des kulturellen Mißverstehens ("The unrecognized genius: history and theory of cultural misunderstanding"). After the war, in 1946, he married art historian Juliane Bartsch.

Roh died in Munich.

Roh was an Art Historian, photographer, and critic. He absolutely hated photographs that were to be like a painting, charcoal, or drawings. Roh was briefly imprisoned for his book Foto-Auge (Photo-Eye).