4 minute read
Wolfgang Beltracchi
The Return of Salvator Mundi
New, large-format book on the latest work of Wolfgang Beltracchi, painter and legendary art forger Features previously unpublished photographs from Beltracchi’s studio by internationally renowned Swiss photographer Alberto Venzago
Documents Beltracchi’s extensive collection The Greats, parts of which are traded as digital nonfungible tokens (NFT)
With new original contributions by distinguished authors such as Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Peter Sloterdijk, Markus Gabriel, and others
In recent years, painter and legendary art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi has opened a new chapter of his career. The core of his latest work is an extensive series of paintings, titled The Greats, that have been put on sale as digital artworks using NFT technology. Its starting point was the Salvator Mundi, a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and sold in 2017 in an auction at Christie’s in New York for $450 m to an unknown buyer. Beltracchi studied the picture meticulously and created several hundred versions of the motif in a variety of styles, ranging from high renaissance to pop art, or depicting Jesus in the personification of Mick Jagger or Mao Zedong. The result is a fascinating game of deception with the disputed painting and its symbolism. This large format book combines photographic insights into Beltracchi’s everyday life in the studio by renowned Swiss photographer Alberto Venzago with a documentation of The Greats collection. Texts are contributed by Stanford University professor emeritus Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, German philosophers Peter Sloterdijk and Markus Gabriel, German journalist Ulrike Posche, German finance executive Leonhard Fischer, Swissbased cryptocurrency and NFT expert Hansen Wang, Swiss art dealer Guido Persterer, and Alberto Venzago. A conversation between Beltracchi and Swiss writer and philosopher René Scheu rounds out this volume that describes and interprets the phenomenon of this extraordinary artist from a range of perspectives.
Alberto Venzago is a Swiss photographer, photojournalist, and filmmaker. He has been awarded numerous international prizes, such as the ICP Award, the United Nations Award, the New York Film Festival Award, the Spotlight Award, and others.
Scheidegger & Spiess Spring
The early work of Swiss Magnum photographer Werner Bischof: fashion photography and reportage in color
Edited by Ludovica Introini and Francesca Bernasconi
Book design by Granit Communication, Design
In cooperation with MASI Lugano and Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur
Hardback approx. 180 pages, 102 color illustrations 21 × 24 cm
978-3-03942-130-5 English 978-3-03942-129-9 German sFr. 49.00 | € 48.00 | £ 42.00 | $ 50.00
MARCH 2023 (Europe) JULY 2023 (US)
Italian edition is published by Edizioni Casagrande, Bellinzona, Switzerland
ISBN 9783039421305
Features for the first time ever some 100 previously unpublished early color images by distinguished Swiss Magnum photographer, Werner Bischof (1916–54)
Offers insights into the elaborate technology and use of the Devin Tricolor color-separation camera
Exhibition: Werner Bischof—Unseen Colour at MASI Lugano (February 12 to May 29, 2023) and at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur (August 26, 2023 to January 21, 2024)
ISBN 9783039421299 9 783039421305
English German
9 783039421299
Werner Bischof
Unseen Colour
Swiss photographer Werner Bischof (1916–54) is best known for his impressive blacka ndwhite images, most of which were taken on expeditions as a reporter in postwar Europe and during the Indochina War (1946–54), and on his travels in the Far East and South America. Far too little known are Bischof’s early color photographs, comprising studio work in fashion and advertising photography as well as reportage from war damaged European cities. For these, Bischof used various types of camera, including a Devin Tricolor. This elaborate color separation device exposed three monochrome plates in a single exposure, each of them equipped with a color filter so that a true color print was subsequently made by addition of the three monochrome negatives. Some 200 of Bischof’s Devin Tricolor negatives have been restored and a selection of them is published for the first time ever in this book. The beautifully illustrated volume is fascinating not only from a photo h istorical perspective. Even these early color images reveal Bischof’s outstanding, sensitive aesthetic that characterizes his entire oeuvre. Some 100 color plates are supplemented with texts by Clara Bouveresse, the French photography historian, Peter Pfrunder, the director of the Fotostiftung Schweiz in Winterthur, and Luc Debraine, the director of the Swiss Camera Museum in Vevey.
Ludovica Introini is an art historian working at MASI Lugano’s exhibition office.
Francesca Bernasconi is an art historian and head of MASI Lugano’s exhibition office.
Scheidegger & Spiess Spring 2023
The entertaining album of a journey with design objects by Italian architect and designer Matteo Thun
Edited by Susanne Thun
Book design by Studio Marie Lusa
Hardback approx. 136 pages, 89 color illustrations 20.5 × 28 cm 978-3-03942-137-4 English sFr. 49.00 | € 48.00 | £ 42.00 | $ 50.00
MARCH 2023 (Europe) JULY 2023 (US)
ISBN 9783039421374
9 783039421374
Walter Pfeiffer, Matteo Thun
In the Summer of 2009
An extraordinary and entertaining visual travelogue that celebrates some fifty design objects and interiors by distinguished Italian designer and architect Matteo Thun
Tells the story of a joyful encounter of two then teenage boys with the oeuvre of their famous father Features a previously unpublished series by celebrated Swiss photographer Walter Pfeiffer
Photographs by Walter Pfeiffer, Design by Matteo Thun
A humorous tribute to Matteo Thun, one of Italy’s most distinguished designers and architects, and his work. In the summer of 2009, Swiss photographer Walter Pfeiffer made an extensive trip from Zurich to the Italian island of Capri, taking shots of some fifty of Thun’s design objects en route. Yet, rather than doing a mere documentation of these items, Pfeiffer created highly lively “tableaux vivants.” The artist was accompanied on his journey by Thun’s two then teenage sons, who thus form the main visual narrative of the book and appear in many pictures together with their father’s creations. A brief introduction by Matteo Thun’s wife Susanne and an index of the depicted design gems round out this extraordinary and entertaining visual travelogue.
Walter Pfeiffer, born in 1946, is a Swiss graphic designer and photographer. His work became known to a wider audience from the early 2000s through contributions to international magazines such as i-D and Vogue.
Matteo Thun, born in 1952, cofounded the worldrenowned Memphis Group in 1981 and established his own studio in Milan in 1984. He has been awarded numerous international prizes for his architectural and product designs.
Scheidegger & Spiess Spring 2023
The multifaceted, always surprising early work of Swiss artist and designer HR Giger
Edited by Beat Stutzer Book design by Guido Widmer
Paperback approx. 168 pages, 106 color and 28 b/w illustrations 20 × 26.5 cm
978-3-03942-136-7 English sFr. 49.00 | € 48.00 | £ 42.00 | $ 50.00
MAY 2023 (Europe)
SEPTEMBER 2023 (US)
