Werner Nefflen

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Demolition of the Grand Hotel Baden , 1944
Young woman with apple harvest, 1944
Military sport demonstrations at the terrace swimming pool in Baden, 1944/45

Werner Nefflen (born April 28, 1919 in Ennetbaden ; † August 1, 2014 there ) was a Swiss photographer . In his home country he is considered the “photographic conscience of the region” in that he documented the course of time in his immediate surroundings photographically, but far beyond that as an authority because the topics he captured were well known nationwide.

Life and work

He got his access to photography through the gift of a camera from his father, who was a member of the BBC amateur photo club in Baden .

After graduating from secondary school in Baden, Nefflen went from 1935 to 1939 to the photography class at the Zurich School of Applied Arts under Hans Finsler , from which he graduated with a diploma. Nefflen felt particularly close to the sculptor and typographer Alfred Willimann (1900–1957). He then worked as a freelance photographer, primarily for material, architecture and landscape photos in his home town. Most of his customers were industry, artists, architects and communities. In 1959 he had his studio and home built below the Schartenfelsen am Lägern . With the exception of two short engagements at the beginning of his career, Nefflen was always self-employed. «His sympathy for people 'like you and me', his closeness to nature and his fascination for technology, architecture and culture are evident in his photographs." His creative power lasted until 1997.

Even if he himself did not consider his photographs to be art, after his death they were salvaged from his private cellar by “art experts and workers from the past” and professionally digitally archived. Most of the 40,000 films he exposed in the course of his long life were commissioned. Only a few were created while traveling in the Swiss mountains, in Spain or France. These private photos have not been archived.

Nefflen was married to Iris and had two daughters and a son with her. He was a member of the Association of Swiss Interior Architects .

Web links

Commons : Werner Nefflen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Marc Herren: Nefflen, Werner. In: fotoCH.ch, as of July 9, 2018, accessed on December 30, 2018.
  2. a b c d Urs Tremp: Werner Nefflen. 1919-2014. In: Baden New Years Papers. Volume 90, 2015 (obituary; PDF; 1.17 MB).
  3. a b Barbara Welter: 23,000 images for the region's memory. Werner Nefflen's photo archive in the Baden Historical Museum. In: Baden New Years Papers. Volume 80, 2005.
  4. Peter Brunner: Father and mother Apparätli date. In: Aargauer Zeitung . April 28, 2009, p. 2 f.
  5. ^ Marc A. Herren : Nefflen, Werner, photographer. Office for the History of Photography Bern, July 9, 2018.
  6. ^ Alfred Hablützel , Verena Huber : Interior architecture in Switzerland. 1942-1992 . Zollikon 1993, ISBN 3-7212-0276-7 , p. 245