Fundacion Mapfre presents for the first time in Spain from 14 December 2011 to 19 February 2012 the work of the Swiss photographer Gotthard Schuh, one of the greatest in the 20th century.
Schuh enthusiastically participated in the aesthetic revolution that took place in the world of photography in the late 1920s and which championed a “new vision”. The photography offered him an opportunity to express his visual ideas. He became since 1932 the staff photographer of the magazine Zürcher Illustrierte.
During the time that he spent in Paris in the 1930s Schuh was inspired by the pleasure of living in that vibrant city and he began to focus on people as a subject. The atmosphere of particular places and lyrical expressivity became the motor of his work.
He produced photo-reportages from around the whole of Europe, covering social, cultural, sporting and political subjects, among them the rise to power of the Nazis in Berlin. In 1941 he abandoned the stimulating life of an independent reporter and became the first graphic editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
In March 1938 Schuh left for Singapore, Java, Sumatra and Bali on a trip that lasted eleven months. On his return he published the book Inseln der Götter in 1941, a celebration of nature and the landscape and of the local population and local cultures. It was one of the best known and most successful books of Swiss photography.
Gotthard Schuh was one of the co founders of Das Wochenende. Schuh’s most important publication of this period was Begegnungen of 1956 in which he combined old and recent photographs.
In 1950 Schuh co-founded the Kollegium Schweizerischer Photographen association together with the photographers Werner Bischof, Paul Senn, Jakob Tuggener and Walter Läubli. It brought together eminent photographers and promoted original photography with artistic aspirations. Despite its success with the public, the Kollegium broke up in 1956 due to differences of opinion among members.
Photo source
A.V.
December 20, 2011
inchide 
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