Gotthard Schuh

Gotthard Schuh (1897-1969) is regarded as one of the most important European photographers of the 20th century. A pioneer of modern photojournalism, he also developed a personal style that might be described as 'poetic realism'. Schuh understood that the photographic view of the world is inevitably subjective, and that the photographer must lose himself in the moment in order to capture it intuitively. Schuh's photographic world is held together by what he himself expressed as 'something whimsical, which means impulsive, unreachable by reason'. This book accompanies an exhibition that will be the first and largest devoted to the work by the Swiss photographer in Spain (Fundación Mapfre, Madrid), with works dated from 1929 to 1956. To round off the show, 20 photographers, that have been associated with the Swiss academy of the 50s and to Schuh himself, will be included in the exhibition (works by Robert Frank, Werner Bischof, Jakob Tuggener and René Groebli). ILUSTRATIONS: 200 b/w photographs