JOSEPH MULLER-BROCKMANN (1914-1996) WERNER BISCHOF. 1957. 49 5/8x36 1/8 inches. Lithographie und Cartonnage, Zurich. Condition A: horizontal folds. Werner Bischof (1916-1954) was one of the major press photographers of the 1950s. He was one of the first to join the prestigious Magnum agency, along with Robert Capa and Henri Cartier Bresson. He spent World War II studying in Zurich, and in the years after the war traveled around Europe documenting much of the destruction and the human toll it took. In the 1950s he went to Japan and Korea to cover the military conflict there, as always, focussing his camera with a compassionate eye on the suffering of the people. Bischof died in a car accident in Peru in 1954. Three years after his untimely death, the Kunstgewerbe Museum in Zurich mounted an exhibition of his photography. Muller-Brockmann, who was employed by the museum, designed the exhibition itself, a small poster and this large one. It is a classic, structured layout, using one of Bischof's photographs. Photo Plakate 191, Muller-Brockman p. 136-7.
