Erwin Jelinek was a very active photographer throughout the heyday of the ISDT both well respected and taking a prominant roll in the press corp at any event. With a copious quantity of material when he passed away he bequethed his collection to Public Archive. Subsequently the images found their way into an online archive dedicated to Motorsport

Photo – Erwin Jelinek (© Technisches Museum Wien)

Erwin Josef Jelinek
( 12.02.1907 Braunsdorf in the municipality of Sitzendorf an der Schmida , NE – 15.10.1989 Hofkirchen an der Trattnach , Upper Austria)

Erwin Jelinek’s interest in photography was sparked by his physics teacher in the College of Education in Vienna. During his training as a primary school teacher, he began photographing as an amateur. Already in the 1920s , he joined a photo club. 1928 self-taught he entered an Agfa European photo competition Agfa winning first prize.
1929 bought a Puch 250 TF Jelinek with a sleek Felber sidecar, where later his wife Gertrude accompanied him to the racing events .
After the Second World War, he was a professional press photographer and focused, as well as his colleague Artur Fenzlau, on the booming reconstruction in motorsport. He was a staff photographer of the magazine “Motorrad“. His studio was located on the 2nd Czerninplatz District of Vienna. Erwin Jelinek moved in 1972 from Vienna to Hofkirchen at the Trattnach in Upper Austria , where he died on October 15, 1989.

In contrast to the photographic Estate Artur Fenzlaus the work of Erwin Jelinek includes only photographs from 1949 until 1977. From Jelinek’s written documents it is known that his early photographs were destroyed during the occupation.

The above text was translated from material at www.technischesmuseum.at

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