Advertising signage, southern states, USA 1954. © Werner Bischof / Magnum Photos / David Hill Gallery
The Golden Gate Bridge from above, San Francisco, USA 1953. © Werner Bischof / Magnum Photos / David Hill Gallery
Magnum photographer Werner Bischof (1916-1954) arrived in the United States a year before his death and spent 1953 traveling across the continent. His series USA, currently on view at David Hill Gallery in London through July 26, 2019, is a vivid portrait of the nation as it rose to become a global superpower.
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While most of his contemporaries were firmly entrenched in the tradition of black and white, Bischof broke free, using color to capture both the mood of a place and the quality of life, creating lyrical poems of extraordinary nuance and depth. The exhibition features a selection of 25 photographs that reveal his experiments in color and motion to capture the sensations of being in a rapidly modernizing country possessed with entirely too much faith in itself.
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Writing in his diary in 1953, Bischof’s recorded his immediate impression of New York City as a “mechanized” and “numb” existence. “Now I realize what Chaplin’s Modern Times was really about,” the Swiss photographer revealed, recognizing the inherent dehumanization of the capitalist enterprise.
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The Golden Gate Bridge from above, San Francisco, USA 1953. © Werner Bischof / Magnum Photos / David Hill Gallery