Fischbach-Göslikon, 1959
Gelatin silver print on baryta paper, 2005
signed

Bruno Kirchgraber is one of those photographers who do not particularly like to be in the limelight. As a trained cartographer, he had a day job that helped him to be independent, so he never treated his photography as anything more than a sideline. 

 

This picture of a sleeping couple on the banks of the river Reuss shows Kirchgraber’s special sensitivity towards meaningful encounters between things and events that might be inconsequential if viewed individually. His photographs uniquely mix sincerity with mischievousness, precision with dreaminess, and sympathy for the simple and orderly with a sense of the marginal and odd.