The Fundacion Mapfre presents The work of photographer Gotthard Schuh (Berlin-Schöneberg, Germany, 1897 – Küsnacht, Switzerland, 1969). in an exhibition on view from 14 December 2011 to 19 February 2012.
Gotthard Schuh, Miner, Winterslag, Bélgica, 1937. Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur © Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur.
The exhibition has been organised in close collaboration with the Fotostiftung Schweiz in Winterthur, from where the works have been loaned, and is curated by its director Peter Pfrunder.
Gotthard Schuh will be presented alongside the most important Swiss photographers of his day, all members of the College of Swiss Photographers (Kollegium Schweizer Photographen) in the 1950s. The show includes 113 photographs, 93 by Gotthard Schuh dating between 1929 and 1956, and 20 additional images by Robert Frank, Werner Bischof, Jakob Tuggener and René Groebli.
Early years
Gotthard Schuh (1897-1969) was one of the most important Swiss photographers of the 20th century. In 1930 he interrupted a promising career as a painter to devote himself fully to photography. 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 flourishing field of photojournalism offered him an opportunity to express his visual ideas, with the magazine Zürcher Illustrierte setting the standards within Switzerland. Its editor-in-chief, Arnold Kübler, used the most talented Swiss photographers to redefine photo-reportage as a narrative form and Schuh became a staff photographer from 1932.
Alongside his activities as a reporter, Schuh always aimed to escape from everyday reality. In the early 1930s he spent various periods in Paris where the ideas of the “new vision” prevailed and where he developed a style that could be described as “poetic realism”. Emotional expressivity, a sense of specific atmosphere and psychological awareness became key elements in his work. Schuh photographed night time scenes and immersed himself in the world of women in search of a vibrant eroticism, making human relations his preferred theme. Prevailing motifs in his imagery were women, lovers and crowds of people that convey a vibrant sense of life.
