Josef Muench, Landscape Pioneer Dies at 90

As an Arizona photographer, I feel I have to let everyone know that we have lost this great man. He put Arizona Highways Magazine on the map mostly using his 4x5. He single handedly made Monument Valley known to the world. He was born in Germany in 1908 and was known to have thrown a tomato at Adolf Hitler, hitting him in the face. He made hundreds of trips to Arizona for photographic purposes from his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. David and Marc are his photographic legacy. Josef died in mid December.

I have enjoyed the work of David and Marc. Now it is clear where

their talent came from.

My mother, Hedwig Mary (Schuster) Freitas, of Santa Maria, CA, had

the opportunity to know Josef as one of the many gardeners who worked

at St Francis School of Nursing in the 1920's - 30's. He came to St.

Francis because most of the Nuns there were German. They taught him

English while he was employed there. He was well liked by the staff

and nursing students. On one of my mother's birthdays, the Nuns

invited Josef to help in the celebration. He brought my mother a

gift, a b & w photograph of a rustic cabin in the woods which had won

an award at the Chicago Worlds Fair. We still have that photograph.

I was lucky enough to have floated the Grand Canyon with Joe in 1972

on a Georgie White river trip. In the mid-70s, when I went to French

Polynesia with a friend, he invited himself along. He had shown us

pictures of Tahiti in the 1950s, which convinced us to go. I have a

wonderful collection of books, Arizona Highways, and postcards that I

received from Joe over about a 10 year period. He was a gem. I

watched him transplant baby palm trees on the island of Huahine, trip

dead wood out of his favorite trees on the south rim of the Grand

Canyon (using his old wooden landscape pruning shears), and watched

him throw water on rocks to bring out the color.