Werner Bischof is one of the legendary names of the Magnum cooperative. He was born in Zurich in 1916 and died at the age of 38 when the car in which he was traveling with two companions fell off a cliff in the Peruvian Andes, the same month that another historic member of the agency, Robert Capa, died while entering a mine in Indochina, in May 1954. The majority of the archive that Bishop left behind consists of black and white images, but he also worked in color, in original and groundbreaking ways. In 1939, two Swiss publishers interested in the development of color photography gave him a Devin TriColor camera, an expensive rarity, to experiment with. By the end of World War II in 1945, Bishop, who planned to settle in Paris to become a painter before chaos broke out, had completed his military service in his country and was making a living doing fashion and advertising assignments for those who brought innovation with color was useful. In the post-war period he documented Europe in ruins and, in addition to the orthodox Rolleiflex and Leica, he also used his Devin TriColor. From 1939 until his untimely death he continued to cultivate his love of color photography. His son Marco Bischof, head of the artists’ archive, saved a hundred images of this type from oblivion. Until now, their value had gone almost unnoticed, given the tremendous quality of the black and white material they treasure. After several years of restoration, the photographs were exhibited this year in Lugano at the Museo d’arte della Svizzera nacional. They can currently be seen at the Swiss Photo Foundation in Winterthur.
Naked. Zurich, 1942.WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT)
Study of orchids. Zurich, 1943.WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT)
Liquid soap surface. Zurich, 1941.WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT)
Sunset. Greece, 1947.WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT)
Diffusion with three colors, Zurich, 1945.WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT)
Model with rose, Zurich, 1939.WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT) (Werner Bischof / Magnum Photos /)
Sunset. Greece, 1947. WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT)
Stress in the cross-section of a railway line. Zurich, 1941.WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT)
Study. Zurich, 1943.WERNER BISCHOF (MAGNUM PHOTOS / CONTACT)