Walter Pfeiffer was born in Beggingen (Switzerland), in 1946 and has been producing since the early 1970s. His portraits of friends, lovers and the youth surrounding him in cities such as Zurich,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
and New York would link him to other photographers of that decade, such as
Nan Goldin
Nancy Goldin (born September 12, 1953) is an American photographer and activist. Her work often explores LGBT subcultures, moments of intimacy, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the opioid epidemic. Her most notable work is '' The Ballad of Sexual Depe ...
and
Nobuyoshi Araki
is a Japanese photographer and contemporary artist professionally known by the mononym . Known primarily for photography that blends eroticism and bondage in a fine art context, he has published over 500 books.The number depends on such things ...
. His first book of photographs appeared in 1980, ''Walter Pfeiffer: 1970-1980'' (Elke Betzel, 1980). The next two decades were spent in relative obscurity, while the photographer kept on producing his photography and a few videos, while at the same time returning to painting. The breakthrough and rediscovery of his work would have to wait until the beginning of the century, when ''Welcome Aboard, Photographs 1980-2000'' (Edition Patrick Frey/Scab, 2001) was published. His work was then linked to the revival of realistic
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...
in the 1990s and early 2000s, with artists such as
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans (born 16 August 1968) is a German photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations.
Tillmans was the first photog ...
,
Ryan McGinley
Ryan McGinley (born October 17, 1977) is an American photographer living in New York City. McGinley began making photographs in 1998. In 2003, at the age of 25, he was one of the youngest artists to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of Ameri ...
,
Slava Mogutin
Slava Mogutin (full name Yaroslav Yurievich Mogutin, b. April 12, 1974, Kemerovo) is a New York-based Russian artist and author, who works across different media, including photography, video, text, installation, sculpture, and painting.
Life ...
,
Heinz Peter Knes
Heinz Peter Knes is a photographer. He is born in 1969 in Gemünden am Main, Germany.
Heinz Peter Knes studied photography on Fachhochschule Dortmund, from 1993 to 1999. Since 2001 Knes has lived in Berlin. His work has been published in several ...
and
Jack Pierson
Jack Pierson (born 1960 in Plymouth, Massachusetts) is a photographer and an artist. Pierson is known for his photographs, collages, word sculptures, installations, drawings and artists books. His "Self-Portrait" series was shown in the 2004 Whit ...
. His influence on the work of photographers like
Juergen Teller
Juergen Teller (born 28 January 1964) is a German fine-art and fashion photographer. He was awarded the Citibank Prize for Photography in 2003 and received the Special Presentation International Center of Photography Infinity Award in 2018.
Maj ...
has been noted. Since then, Walter Pfeiffer has collaborated with international magazines as diverse in style and audience as '' i-D'', '' Butt'' and ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
''.
Artist Rep agency Art + Commerce represents Walter Pfeiffer for image licensing and advertising.
Publications
His first book of photographs, ''Walter Pfeiffer: 1970-1980'', was published in 1980, followed a few years later by ''The eyes, the thoughts, ceaselessly wandering'' (Nachbar der Welt, 1986), but raised little attention. His work would only garner an international audience after the publication of ''Welcome Aboard, Photographs 1980-2000'', in 2001. Since then, three new books have followed, released by international publishing houses such as
Hatje Cantz
Hatje Cantz Verlag (English: Hatje Cantz Publishing) is a German book publisher specialising in photography, art, architecture and design. It was established in 1945 by Gerd HatjeSteidl
Steidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany. It was started in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl and is still run by him.
Overview
The company was started by Ger ...
, including ''Night and Day'' (Hatje Cantz, 2007), ''Walter Pfeiffer: In Love with Beauty'' (Steidl, 2009) and ''Cherchez la femme!'', also in 2009.
Exhibitions
Exhibitions
An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibitio ...
of Walter Pfeiffer's photography have multiplied considerably in the past decade, due in part to his collaborations with magazines such as '' i-D'' and ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
'', but also the publications of his books by Hatje Cantz and other international publishers. In the past few years, his most important shows were in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
and
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, in galleries such as Galerie Baumet Sultana (Paris), Team Gallery and Anna Kustera (New York).
Models
Walter Pfeiffer has stated in interviews that he prefers to work with non-professionals. His casting is usually done by himself, friends and a few assistants, often approaching subjects in the street. However, in the past few years, due to his work in the fashion industry, Pfeiffer has also photographed professional models such as
Cara Delevingne
Cara Jocelyn Delevingne ( ; born 12 August 1992) is an English model and actress. She signed with Storm Management after leaving school in 2009. Delevingne won Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 2012 and 2014.
Delevingne sta ...
,
Karlie Kloss
Karlie Elizabeth Kloss (born August 3, 1992) is an American fashion model. ''Vogue Paris'' declared her one of the "top 30 models of the 2000s" when she was 17.
Kloss was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2013 until 2015; she resigned to study at ...
,
Magdalena Frackowiak
Magdalena may refer to:
* Magdalena (given name), a given name derived from Mary Magdalene (including a list of people with the name)
Entertainment
* Magdalena (comics), an American comic book superheroine
* ''Magdalena'' (film), a 1920 Czechos ...
,
Eva Herzigová
Eva Herzigová (born 10 March 1973) is a Czech-Italian supermodel and actress.
Early life and career
Herzigová was born in Litvínov, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), the daughter of an accountant mother and an electrician father. Growing ...
, Francisco Lachowski and Lorcan Leather-Barrow.
Books
* ''Walter Pfeiffer: 1970-1980'' (Elke Betzel, 1980).
* ''The eyes, the thoughts, ceaselessly wandering'' (Nachbar der Welt, 1986).
* ''Welcome Aboard, Photographs 1980-2000'' (Edition Patrick Frey/Scab, 2001).
* ''Night and Day'' (