photo basel

11 - 16 June, 2019

After the successful launch of our Master Cabinet in 2018, highlighting vintage or early prints of classic photographic positions in a curated special exhibition, photo basel is delighted to return the Master Cabinet in 2019. Picking up from last year's topic "Pivotal Moments", our upcoming edition will focus on "Tender Moments" in photography. "Tender Moments" will explore people's capacity and need for affection, in images that capture and express the attentive and empathetic nature of this human interaction. And here, it is especially female artists who have produced many iconic images that are permeated with tenderness and care, and whose practice tends to be more true to the emotional and physical state depicted within their photographs.

Gotthard Schuh was born in Berlin to Swiss parents. In 1902 the family moved to Aarau, where he attended primary school and from 1914 the cantonal school and began to paint. In 1916 he graduated from the trade school in Basel. In 1917/1918 Schuh was drafted as a soldier for the border service.
From 1919 he lived as a painter in Basel and Geneva. After a great trip to Italy in 1920 he settled as a painter in Munich. In 1926 he returned to Switzerland and became manager of a photographic business.
After his marriage in 1927 he moved to Zurich, where he began to photograph. From 1928 to 1931 he had several exhibitions as a painter and joined the Basel artist group "Rot-Blau". 1931 the first photos were published in the Zürcher Illustrierte. 1932 followed a picture exhibition in Paris, where he met Picasso, Léger and Braque.
From 1933 to 1937 Schuh worked as a freelance photo reporter for the Zürcher Illustrierte, Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, Paris Match and Life. His reportages took him throughout Eu- rope and 1938/1939 to Indonesia. From 1941 to 1960 he was picture editor at the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. In 1951 he founded the College of Swiss Photographers together with Werner Bischof, Walter Läubli, Paul Senn and Jakob Tuggener.
After 1960 he turned again to painting. Gotthard Schuh died in 1969 in Küsnacht on Lake Zurich.