HARTMANN BRILLIANCE OPTIK VIENNA & LISL STEINER

Lisl Steiner inside the main hall of Elizabeth Kaiserin Hotel of Vienna on May 24th, 2013, at 10:50 h in the morning, ten minutes before going to Hartmann Brilliance Optik to start the display of her pictures in the elegant shop windows of the reputed spectacles and sunglasses shop.

Erich Hartmann, driving force of Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna, founder of the firm and an international authority in optics and manufacture of spectacles, sunglasses, contact lenses and a number of accessories made with horn, featuring an experience of more than fifty years in this scope and thirty as a director of Hartmann Brilliance since its opening in 1980. A self-made man who through very hard work of decades and a tremendous love for what he does, has managed to turn nowadays into one of the most important worldwide experts in this professional domain, achieving a flawless symbiosis between the most advanced technology available and well rooted craftsmanship working parameters, unabatingly spawning brainstorms and keeping a steady indefatigable struggle to attain his most important aim: to gain the full confidence of his customers and to utterly satisfy their requirements, by means of a very wide assortment of customized top-class eyewear products able to meet the highest quality and personal taste criteria.
  
Hartmann Brilliance Vienna and the renowned photographer Lisl Steiner have signed an agreement of collaboration through which some pictures of the famous photojournalist made in late fifties and sixties will be displayed in the shop windows of the elegant top-notch Hartmann Optik located in Singerstrasse, 8, Vienna (around two hundred meters from the Elizabeth Kaiserin Hotel, in the downtown of the Austrian capital), which is currently one of the most advanced centers in the world within the sphere of manufacture of ultralight and antiallergic horn-rimmed customized spectacles and sunglasses, contact lenses and other accessories, thanks to the outstanding know-how and expertise of Erich Hartmann (the creator of the firm in 1980) and its great team, producing a comprehensive range of products, made with painstaking perfectionism and belief in traditional craftsmanship, to such an extent that the shop has got its own workshop and offers a reference class standard of quality and style, steadily striving after fulfilling the wishes of its customers all over the globe, thanks to very deep knowledge, state-of-the-art optometric technology and a unique treatment of the horn as a natural material with gorgeous color schemes and patterns that can´t be artificially reproduced.

Lisl Steiner standing by the elegant façade of Hartmann Wien Optik Shop just after the installation of her pictures in both shop windows.

                                        © Lisl Steiner

One of the 12 " x 18 "  (30 x 45 cm) copies of Lisl Steiner´s pictures shown in the display windows of Hartmann Brilliance Optik. Lisl Steiner was one of the first photographers deeply penetrating the Brazilian Amazonas area searching for remote tribes, capturing a lot of natives in their original environment and living exactly as they did thousands of years ago. In this amazing image we can see an Amazonas river indian young woman in deep introspection, masterfully depicted by Lisl. On the other hand, the excellent Lisl Steiner´s copies exhibited in Hartmann Brilliance Optik were a great work made by the Vienna based painter Alicia Sancha, who departing from digital archives of Lisl´s images, enhanced them through the use of a special software, subsequently getting the enlargements on premium Hahnemühle Albrecht Dürer 210 g/m2 FineArt InkJet Paper in synergy with a professional Epson printer. 

One of Lisl Steiner´s pictures shown in the shopwindow of Hartmann Brilliance Optik in Vienna. 

Left shopwindow of Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna displaying six 12" x 18" (30 x 45 cm) copies of photographs made by Lisl Steiner during late fifties and sixties during her projects Children of the Americas and Ancient Tribes of the Brazilian Amazonic Jungle.

                                                      © Lisl Steiner

Another of Lisl Steiner´s photographs shown on the shopwindows of Hartmann Brilliance Optik in Vienna. This image was taken by Lisl in 1957 and depicts four shoeshine boys in Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro (Brasil). They had no childhood, and Lisl was living with their mothers (who were prostitutes) in favelas for some weeks. Image belonging to her Children of the Americas project.

Horn rimmed ultralight and antiallergic customized spectacles manufactured by Hartman Brilliance Optik Vienna. The level of huge precision and manual labour needed to make them required a lot of hours of handcrafted work in seamless synergy with groundbreaking machinery and the most updated optometric technology, craving for attaining a fundamental dual goal: to offer a perfectly corrected instrument and to emphasize each customer´s personality, adjusting the spectacles to his/her viewing habits. 

And along with Erich Hartmann, a master of his trade who directs the remarkable Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna, there´s a highly competent team made up by Ingrid Hartmann, Martin Dünser, Petra Gorbach, Julia Wieser, Romina Reichenpfader and Josef Kuruthukulangara, they all working in perfect coordination with Stephan Hartmann, a full-fledged artisan who runs the workshop and has a stunning gift for handling the highly innovative multilayer technology 

rendering the colours of the spectacles and sunglasses frames along with accessories made of horn brighter and more intense, simultaneously fostering the chromatic range, so customers can experience by themselves an unmatched price-performance ratio in frames, lens technology, quality of viewing and comfort, with boundless designs, colours and combinations matching each individual preference, since Hartmann Optik Vienna will find the right spectacle lenses for them according to their habits, light conditions, working places, leisure time activities, sensitivity to light, changes in vision, fatigue, visual acuity, eye coordination, etc, through exceedingly complete previous examination, as well as providing two great bonuses: 

a) A remarkable video centration system making possible the communication between eyes and spectacles and being able to accurately fix the most adequate parameters for the customization of the very thin spectacle lenses

b) The establishing of the diopter value of both eyes by means of the Zeiss i. Profiler, a revolutionary measurement device 

which is the core of a very innovative wavefront technology enabling to see more contrasts even during twilight, night conditions and on driving. This state-of-the-art contrivance is based on a new correction method with a complex and patented calculation system which optimizes to the utmost the choosing of the required lens thickness in reflected light using the wavefront analysis in order to wholly reduce any possible reproduction errors of the spectacle lenses and to increase the customer´s vision comfort, 

fulfilling a new experience in vision with colours richer than ever before, under any light condition, without any reflexes or irradiations, with stunning sharpness and rich contrast, because the machine boasts an integral automated system that compensates the higher order aberrations and measures in seconds the customer refractive condition, the corneal topography, the wave front aberrometry and the auto keratometry readings, which results in an exceedingly accurate and very customized i. Scription, in such a way that potential glare and decreased vision under dim light and at night are reduced to negligible levels. 

In addition, this great refractive technology is particularly peerless calculating the axis and astigmatic power, and yields the benefit of going far beyond the usual 0.25 diopters accuracy of lenses, because this contrivance enables to manufacture lenses with an accuracy of 0.01 diopters, featuring 25 times more precision than other methods. And besides, Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna has a relationship with Dr. Wolfgang Radner, eminent Professor of Ophthalmology at the Medical University of Vienna (Austria), who also collaborates offering expert advice and professional treatment.

Lisl Steiner walking by the very nice façade of Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna, while Erich Hartmann attends some customers. The wisely thought tasteful and spruced up minimalist art nouveau inner store space is a real treat for the eyes, with everything oozing a passion for detail and exquisite handicraft items, together with a well proved ability for designing and shaping creation at the highest level of quality, comfort, style and duration, it all complemented by a great and personalized treatment to customers, who first and foremost are true friends.


Copyright Text and Pictures: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

MARTIN LUTHER KING FUNERAL APRIL 9, 1968: LISL STEINER IN ACTION

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY´S STATE FUNERAL IN WASHINGTON D.C. 50TH ANNIVERSARY. PHOTOGRAPHIC COVERAGE BY LISL STEINER ON NOVEMBER 23, 24 AND 25, 1963

SOCIETY IS KAPUT & OTHER TRUTHS FROM AN AGELESS SPIRIT: LISL STEINER REACHES 400,000 YOUTUBE VISITS

PELÉ PHOTOGRAPHED BY LISL STEINER

FRANZ BECKENBAUER PHOTOGRAPHED BY LISL STEINER