Werner Bischof. Retrospettiva

This book is published on the occasion of the monographic retrospective on Werner Bischof, one of the most important photoreporters in the XX century, hosted at Palazzo Reale in Turin. Born in Zurich in 1916, Bischof studied photography with Hans Finsler in his native town at the School for Arts and Crafts. At the age of twenty, he opened his own studio and he soon showed his technical ability and his accurate search for formal perfection.
When Second World War was over, he travelled through Europe - Germany, France and The Netherlands - and he was the author or a reportage on war devastation, that gave him international recognition. In 1949 he joined Magnum agency, that had been founded just two years before, and he worked as photoreporter around the world until 1954, when he died in a car accident in Peru.
The exhibition features over one hundred black and white photographs, grouped in seven sections: Zurich 1916-1945, Europe after the War 1945-1950, Japan 1951-1952, Korea 1951-1952, Honk Kong/Indochina 1951-1952, India 1951-1952, North/South America 1953-1954.
Bischof's images are still today striking for the immediacy, the empathy and the humanity they convey.
The catalogue features also a critical essay by Anna Madesani and an interview with Marco Bischof, Werner's son.