Werner Bischof Des photos

In his brief life, Werner Bischof (1916-1954) travelled half the world to create the oeuvre that would seal his reputation as a master of classic black-and-white photography. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the Swiss photographer's output straddling the divide between art and journalism. His work in the nascent field of colour photography is also well represented.
Visiting southern Germany after the Second World War ended, he was appalled at the sheer scale of the destruction and set about documenting Europe in the aftermath of war. In those early days of photojournalism, Bischof had his pictures published in the leading magazines of the western world and became a founding member of the legendary Magnum Photos group.
Bischof's 1951 photo essay on famine in India won him international acclaim. His travels in Asia inspired a life long interest in the relationship between tradition and modernism, culminating in the photographs of Japan. Working in the war zones of Korea and Indochina, Bischof became increasingly disillusioned by photojournalism and, after two years in Asia he returned to Zurich.
In the autumn of 1953 he created expansively composed colour photographs in the USA. He then travelled on to Central and South America in search of harmony between man and nature. Werner Bischof was killed in a road accident in the Andes in 1954.