Vendredi 03 Août 2012 15:13:22 par actuphoto dans Expositions

Bernatzik's work bridges the gap between the great pioneer 19th Century photographers like Desire Charney (1863), and those who went into Africa a generation later, for example George Rodger (1940s) and Mirella Ricciardi (early 1970s). His work is strikingly different and remarkable when juxtaposed with that of his predecessors. Theirs are relatively static images confined to the more accessible areas of Africa whereas Bernatzik penetrated the remotest corners of the continent to capture the heady exoticism confronting him. The photographers who followed him into Africa in the 1940s and 1950s were greeted by a consciousness and sometime wariness of the ‘white man and all that came with him'. All Bernatzik's belongings, negatives and cameras were destroyed by fire during bombing in Austria during the Second World War. What was to only survive was one almost complete set of small prints, unique and in remarkable condition, accompanied by a set of diaries and small albums bearing testament to his peripatetic life. Born in Vienna in 1897, Hugo A Bernatzik abandoned his medical studies to travel, financing his journeys with journalism and selling his photographs. Fascinated with the people he encountered he returned to Vienna to study ethnology, psychology and anthropology before returning to his travels. His work was a rare combination of both scholarly and popular and was published in many languages both sides of the Atlantic. Over the span of his career Bernatzik undertook research in and photographed, Egypt, Sudan, Papua New Guinea, Bali, Southeast Asia and Swedish Lapland amongst others. Bernatzik fell ill on his last trip to Morocco and died in Vienna in 1953 from a tropical disease at the age of fifty-six. “I am in awe of Bernatzik's work. Without these photographs how would we known how perfect and beautiful Africa was and could be? The images are some of the greatest work I have ever seen on Africa and it's varied peoples.” — Don McCullin