Walter Schels

Walter Schels (2009)

Walter Schels (* 1936 in Landshut ) is a German photographer . He became famous for his black and white pictures.

Life

Walter Schels was born in Landshut in 1936. From 1957 to 1965 he worked as a window dresser in Barcelona , Canada and Geneva . He then went to New York as a freelance photographer . In 1970 he returned to Germany and opened his own studio in Munich . He worked for advertising, for magazines and magazines, and on his own freelance projects.

In the 1980s, Schels photographed reports on births for the magazine Eltern and discovered the aged and “knowing” faces of the newborns. This experience influenced him in all of his other portrait work . Schels became known for his photographic character studies. They show prominent people from politics and culture, but also animals. Walter Schels also deals with extreme situations of human existence.

“The works of Walter Schels are in the tradition of psychological photographic portraits. The portrayed present themselves face-to-face, with direct eye contact to the camera. They self-confidently look out of the pictorial space towards the viewer, who is confronted with the haunting physiognomic landscape of the individual face, especially in the large-format works. Nevertheless, Schel's gaze is not a distant, emotionless, or purely analytical one, but remains highly insistent, empathetic and always maintains respectful discretion in spite of all close-sightedness towards the person portrayed, ”is how the photographer, collector and curator FCGundlach describes him in an exhibition introduction to the Free Academy of the Arts, Hamburg.

Walter Schels received several awards for the series, Live again before death , realized with his wife Beate Lakotta , which shows hospice patients a short time before and immediately after their death.

Walter Schels is a member of the Association of Freelance Photo Designers and a member of the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg . Walter Schels lives and works in Hamburg.

Exhibitions (selection)

• "Of people, animals and hands" International Photo Days 1993 in Herten
• "Blinde", Museum for Arts and Crafts, Hamburg 1994
• "Portraits" Fotografieforum Frankfurt, 1995
• "Warhol - Beuys" Altonaer Museum Hamburg, 1999
• "The second face" Akademie der Künste, Hamburg, 2002
• "Live again" German Hygiene Museum, Dresden, 2004
• "Lifetime" Photokina, Cologne 2004
• "Live again" Art Museum Thurgau, Switzerland 2006
• "Of big and small animals" State Museum for Art and Cultural History, Oldenburg 2007
• "AmorTe" Lisbon, Portugal 2006
• "Life before death", Wellcome Collection, London, 2008 (see video)
• "Mythical Creatures" Horizonte Zingst, 2008
• "Life before death" Haifa, Israel, 2008
• "Live again" Vienna, Graz, Austria 2009
• "Survival - of prematurely born children I", long-term study, Hanover 2009
• "Survival - of prematurely born children II", long-term study, Frankfurt aM 2011
• "Blooming Dreams" Festival Horizonte Zingst 2011
• "Schels Tierleben" Horizonte Zingst 2012
• "Animal portraits", Museumsberg Flensburg, 2015
• Walter Schels. Life , Deichtorhallen Hamburg, House of Photography

Awards

• Hansel Mieth Prize
• Gold medal from the Art Directors Club Germany
• Lead Award of the Academy for New Visual Language
• World Press Photo Award

Books

• with text by Margrit Tellenbach: In a dream I saw myself black . Thauros Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 9783884110003 .
• Roncalli - The Journey to the Rainbow , Mahnert-Lueg, Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3922170334 .
• The open secret. What a newborn's face and facial expressions reveal. Which systems and properties can be recognized , Mosaik Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 9783576104006 .
• The open secret: newborn - oldborn. What the face and facial expressions of a newborn baby reveal, what characteristics and characteristics can be recognized , Mosaik Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 9783576114692 .
• Lidské tváře Brno 1998.
• Animal portraits , Edition Stemmle, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-908163-44-7 .
• with text by Sabine Schwabenthan: The soul of animals: faces, feelings, stories . Orbis Verlag Munich 2002, ISBN 9783572014033 .
• with text by Beate Lakota: Live again before death: When people die , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3421058379 .
• with texts by Beate Lakotta: hands . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-10-002547-0 .

Web links and sources

• Literature by and about Walter Schels in the catalog of the German National Library
• official homepage
• "How one Photographer overcame his Fear of Death by photographing it", by David Rosenberg, in: SLATE , Aug. 17, 2014
• "The magic of what has faded. Photographer Walter Schels shows flower still lifes in the Hilaneh von Kories gallery" by Belinda Grace Gardner, Welt am Sonntag , November 11, 2012
• "Six on the beach: 3. The connoisseur of people. In the course of their lives, some photographers create a work that one can only bow down to. Walter Schels is one of these icons of photographic art." Blog by Christoph Künne, Docma - magazine for image processing , June 2012
• "Faces of Life and Death" Well blog by Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times , April 9, 2008
• "How to stare death in the face" Laura Cumming reviews "Life Before Death" at the Wellcome Collection. "The Guardian," April 13, 2008
• "Death portraits shared around the world" The Guardian , April 8, 2008

Interviews

• "Walter Schels - Animali" Portfolio and Interview by Rosanna Checchi In: Zoom , Jan / Feb 2010
• Jan Paersch: "Love is an unreal term". In: taz . September 30, 2019 (Interview with Walter Schels). 

Individual evidence

1. ^ SWR1 BW, SWR1 BW: Walter Schels. Retrieved April 23, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Reference on erlebniswelt-fotografie-zingst.de ( Memento from August 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Report on spiegel.de , accessed on September 15, 2012