Picture: 59 x 42.5 cm
We are delighted to open the new season with a double exhibition of two of the most important figures in Swiss photographic history: René Burri (1933-2014) and Werner Bischof (1916-1954).
Following the highly acclaimed exhibitions of ‘Unseen Colour’ at MASI Lugano and the Fotostiftung Winterthur, Gallery Bildhalle invites visitors to discover, in dialogue with his iconic black and white images, the largely unknown colour photography of Werner Bischof.
Four years ago, Marco Bischof and Tania Kuhn came across boxes containing hundreds of glass plate negatives in the archive of the Werner Bischof Estate and thus unearthed a hidden treasure trove of previously unknown colour photographs.
Largely considered one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, the original negatives date from the period between 1935 and 1954. The breath-taking images of Switzerland, post-war Europe and the countries Bischof travelled to have been painstakingly restored over a period of years, with the resulting prints lending Bischof's work an unknown dimension and reveal a little-known aspect of his oeuvre.
Bischof used three cameras: a Rolleiflex, a Leica and a Devin Tri-Color, which he had experimented with in his studio during the war years before taking it with him on his travels through post-war Europe. The Devin Tri-Color could only be used with a tripod. However through it, it was possible for the first time to take colour ‘one-shot pictures.’ This means that the image is exposed simultaneously in the camera through mirrors on three glass plates. Each black and white negative is provided with a red, green or blue filter. The resulting photos have an incredible resolution and unmistakable colour intensity.
Marco Bischof believes that his father's love of colour photography is linked to his early ambitions to become a painter, plans that would be thwarted by the war. In a letter to his colleague and contemporary Robert Capa, he wrote: ‘In my heart, I will always be a painter who sees the past in colour, who is excited by the abundance and richness of human expression and who feels the limitations of the camera with a touch of melancholy.’
"Not only the oeuvre as a whole, but even more so the coloured work is a muscular torso. We find a panorama of technical and aesthetic possibilities, from spray-grey to soft and watercolour-like, from rococo-like playful to pop-art-like aggressive, depending on the possibilities of the motif and the material."
Tobia Bezzola, excerpt from his foreword in the book ‘Werner Bischof - Unseen Colour’
Published by Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2023
