German · 1939–1986
Axel Arens (1939-1986) was a German journalist, photographer, and writer. Born into a literary family -- his parents, Hanns Arens and Odette Arens-Maucler, hosted gatherings of the postwar writers' circle Gruppe 47 at their home, Schloss Oberherrlingen, near Ulm -- he appeared as a child actor in two West German films in 1954, Das fliegende Klassenzimmer and Liebesbriefe aus Mittenwald, before turning to journalism and photography as an adult. Writing for FAZ Magazin and other outlets, he won the Egon-Erwin-Kisch-Preis, West Germany's top prize for reportage, in 1985 for his essay 'Manhattan, Brooklyn und Bronx: Gott aber wohnt in Kalifornien.' As a photographer he contributed to the collaborative photobooks Mit unseren Augen (1958) and the posthumous East Coast-West Coast (1987). His best-known book, James Dean: Photographien, a photographic study of the actor's brief screen career, was published in Germany by Schirmer/Mosel and translated into English by Paul Kremmel as James Dean: Photographs (W. W. Norton, 1993), reaching American readers after Arens's death in 1986.