Werner Bischof is considered one of the most important photographers of the 20th century. His œuvre is astonishing in many respects. In the only nine years that he had available for his journalistic work from 1945 until his early death in 1954, he created a remarkably extensive body of outstanding photographs. His work took him across much of the globe at a time when long-distance air travel remained arduous and involved numerous stopovers. The breadth of his motifs and subjects is matched by the consistently high artistic quality of his photographs. Among all the suffering and misery he saw and photographed, his gaze always found signs of hope and beauty. He devoted himself to both aspects of life thoughtfully, sensitively and with an unerring sense for the decisive moment. Throughout his journalistic career, he retained a distinctly artistic approach.
Initially, Bischof did not want to become a photographer, but a painter. It was a coincidence that brought him to work with the camera, since all the places in the graphic arts class at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich were already taken. As a student of Hans Finsler, he worked intensively in the studio, photographing objects and exploring light and shadow. He later transferred the compositional skills honed through this practice to his work on the road, where time was often limited and situations could change from one moment to the next.
After the Second World War, Bischof travelled throughout Europe, documenting the destruction, displacement and poverty left by the conflict. This work brought him international recognition, and in 1949 he joined Magnum Photos. His subsequent assignments for leading illustrated magazines such as Life, Paris Match and Picture Post took him beyond Europe to document some of the defining crises of the post-war period.
In India, he photographed the famine in Bihar; in Korea and Indochina, the effects of war on civilian populations. He also worked extensively in Japan and photographed in Hong Kong and the United States.
As his international career developed, Bischof became increasingly uneasy with the magazines’ demands for sensationalist coverage of crisis regions and with the ways in which his photographs were used. Although he continued to fulfil his editorial commissions, he sought opportunities to work more slowly and in accordance with his own convictions. With patience and empathy, he focused on civilian populations and expressed solidarity with those enduring war, poverty and displacement. He approached his subjects with the utmost respect. In Bischof’s photographs, ethical commitment and aesthetic rigour are closely intertwined.
His final journey, through Mexico and Panama to Peru, was cut short in May 1954, when he died in a road accident in the Andes at the age of 38.