Werner Bischof Backstory

This new monograph captures the life and work of a Magnum great, Werner Bischof, and features his most iconic images, as well as insight into his life as a photojournalist and artist.

Werner Bischof: Backstory presents the remarkable journey of a Magnum photographer, told afresh and in his own words. With photographs selected from work made all over the globe, this book chronicles Bischof’s nomadic life while on assignment from 1945 to 1954, and is published in celebration of what would have been his hundredth birthday. With an expansive collection edited by the photographer’s son, Marco Bischof, Backstory brings together almost four hundred photographs, contact sheets, letters, diaries, and sketches that give an intimate understanding of Werner Bischof’s creative process. This volume provides a time capsule of postwar society, illuminated by the compelling story of this adventurous artist.

This new monograph captures the life and work of a Magnum great, Werner Bischof, and features his most iconic images, as well as insight into his life as a photojournalist and artist. Known for his postwar social documentary work, Bischof was inspired to become a journalist after the ruin of World War II left him unable to be a passive observer. He traveled documenting both the suffering of the postwar world and the day-to-day life within traditional cultures affected by industry and technology. This expansive collection brings together these photographs, organized geographically—Europe, India, Japan and Korea, Hong Kong, Indochina, and North and South America. Accompanying the photographs are the contact sheets, letters, diaries, and sketches that give an intimate glimpse into his creative process, revealing the highlights, struggles, and his vulnerability. The book encapsulates Bischof’s far-reaching search for human connection through storytelling and is a testament to his relentless obsession to find harmony and beauty. In the words of Simon Maurer, “his photographs open up worlds.” And true to this quote, this book provides a time capsule of the postwar world, opened up by the compelling and profound story of the life of this adventurous artist.