Hugo A Bernatzik ventured into Africa nearly 80 years ago equipped with a large cumbersome plate camera and a dogged inquisitiveness. He proceeded to create a set of the most perfect documents of a paradise soon to be lost to the onslaught of the 20th century. Although well known as an ethnographer in his lifetime, Bernatzik's photographs drifted into obscurity and their rediscovery is unquestionably one of the most important photographic finds in recent years. Michael Hoppen Gallery is proud to present a rare opportunity to view this extraordinary work face to face for the first time in the United Kingdom.
In 1927 Bernatzik first travelled to southern Sudan, at the time one of the remotest places in Africa. Situated at the confluence of several great rivers the land was a sea of swamps and grasses, only accessible by the occasional river steamer. Working at fever pitch with his awkward camera in this inhospitable environment he vividly captured the people he encountered. Although Bernatzik's work was technically cutting edge it was dismissed by his contemporary academics as ‘artistic photography'. However, the legacy of Bernatzik's expeditions has outlived his more scientific contemporaries. His genuine interest in the ‘real' people and their way of life resulted in images compelling enough to make us not only regret what has been lost but to also wonder at what he saved.
Daniel Blau gallery is delighted to announce the opening of the forthcoming exhibition,‘Other Portraits’; a selection of portraits and self-portraits by twenty-two of some of the most significant and celebrated photographers of the twentieth century.
Included are distinctive photographs by Margaret Bourke- White, Cecil Beaton, Walker Evans, Bernatzik, Araki, Tina Modotti, Arnold Newman and others. Gandhi, Roosevelt, and Mao Tse Tung are seen alongside portraits of Andy Warhol, Federico Fellini, as well as Nuba tribes people from Sudan. The photographs range from the subtle and intimate portrait of “Bernice Abbott” by Walker Evans, to the bold, curious images of “Willem de Kooning” by Arnold Newman. The exhibition is an invitation to explore the essence of each, from a reflective Chu...
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 Wa...