PHOTO 49
Publicite et Arts Graphiques
Werbung Und Graphishce Kunst
Advertising and Graphic Art
Maurice Collet [Editor]
Maurice Collet [Editor]: PHOTO 49 [Advertising and Graphic Art]. Geneva: Maurice Collet Editeur, 1949. First edition [Publicite Et Arts Graphiques]. Text in French, German and English. Thick printed french-folded wrappers. 168 pp. Various paper stocks. Well illustrated with black and white photographic plates and advertisments. Wrapperedges lightly worn. A near fine copy.
9.5 x 12 softcover book with 168 pages of black and white photographic plates. A beautifully designed and produced book that must be seen to be truly appreciated.
The communities of avant-garde artists that had flourished in Europe during the 1920s and early '30s were all but destroyed by World War II. It was not until the late 1940s that an innovative style returned to photography in Germany and Switzerland, largely through the efforts of the medical-doctor-turned-photographer Otto Steinert, founder of the Subjective Photography movement. Rather than exploring external realities, the Subjective photographers investigated the complexities of the individual inner state. They retained many of the experimental techniques practiced at the Bauhaus before the war but worked in a darker, edgier style exemplified by disorienting and expressionistic works.
The roots of Steinert's Subjective Photography are readily apparent in this 1949 Swiss photo anthology, full of "images that do not belong to the usual stereotypes of photography."
Contents divided into these easy to reference categories:
Nature
Animals
Man
Work
Advertising
Fantasy
Includes photographs by C. A. De Bary, Hans Baumgartner, Jean Bauty, Beringer & Pampaluchi, Werner Bischof, Jakob Bram, Claude-Francois, Edmond Droz, Hermann Eidenbenz, Willi Eidenbenz, Friedrich Engesser, Hans Entzeroth, Gertrude Fehr, Hans Finsler, Rene Groebli, Heinz Guggenbuhl, Edi Hauri, E. A. Heiniger, Hugo Herdeg, Werner Heri, C. Hofmann, Gaston De Jongh, Jurg Klages, Hermann Konig, Max Kuttel, Josef Laubacher, Walter Laubli, Werner Luthy, Rold Lutz, Germaine Martin, Leonard Von Matt, A. Messmer, Andreas Pedrett, Fernand Perret, Otto Pfeiffer, Benedikt Rast, Marianne Rosset, Clemens Schildknecht, Schmutz & Weider, Franz Schneider, Paul Senn, Simon Siegfried, Hans Emil Staub, Albert Steiner, Tenca-Photo, Georges Tieche, Jakob Tuggener, Paul Walther, Dietrich Widmer, Michael Wolgensinger, and Charles Zbinden.
. . . The absolute photographic creation in its most advanced forms frees itself of each reproduction of the object, or dematerializes it due to changes in the photographic process, or disengages from the visual point of view, up to turn it into a purely structural element, into an element that is part of the composition . . . As the result of important and creative experiences about form and vision as well as lively transpositions, creating an absolute photography - what we call Subjective Photography - which produces images that do not belong to the usual stereotypes of photography.
— Otto Steinert, the creative possibilities of photography [1955]