Otto Bettmann

Otto Ludwig Bettmann (October 15, 1903, Leipzig, Germany – May 3, 1998), known as "The Picture Man," was the founder of the Bettmann Archive. Bettmann is considered to have "virtually invented the image resource business."

He was born in Leipzig, Germany to Hans Isidor, who was an orthopedic surgeon and physician, and Charlotte Bettman. His parental home was across the road from the Thomaskirche, the church where Johann Sebastian Bach worked as cantor and music director from 1723-50. As a child of Jewish parents, he was unaware that going to a synagogue on Friday and singing the praises of Christ on Sunday was somewhat unusual and continued to participate until his voice changed. His musical talent not limited to voice, he studied piano from the age of six. That discipline lasted his entire life, allowing him at age ninety-three, to still play Bach's Art of Fugue.

He had wanted to be a doctor like his father but his brother Ernest already was being groomed for that profession. Without the support of his father, it would be impossible and his father had told him many times that one doctor in the family would be enough.

In 1921, he enrolled in the University of Leipzig and studied history, German literature, and philosophy. At that time a university education consisted of spending time at a number of schools. Otto went to Freiburg for two years then returned to Leipzig to complete his dissertation. His title, "The Emergence of Professional Ethics in the German Book Trade of the Eighteenth Century" addressed the issue of copyright legislation. In retrospect this thesis became the of his life and his claim to posterity.

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