The Paul Senn Project

Photographer Paul Senn (1901-1953) is regarded as one of the great representatives of a new visual language in photography that explored the everyday routine of human life as its subject matter. In Switzerland he recorded documentary images of rural life and workers. He also travelled to nearly all European countries and later spent time in South and North America. All in all he took pictures for over 15 Swiss and foreign magazines. Together with Gotthard Schuh and Hans Staub, he is regarded as one of the three leading stars of Swiss photographic journalism between 1930 and 1950 whose names began with “S”. In the Kübler era he became renowned in the Zürcher Illustrierte and later in the Du nationale.

The Paul Senn Archive was adopted by the Kunstmuseum Bern in 1982 via the Gottfried Keller Foundation where its holdings had been deposited. The Kunstmuseum Bern initiated the Paul Senn Project in 2003, which it finances together with the Bernischen Stiftung für Fotografie, Film und Video FFV (Bern Foundation for Photography, Film, and Video). Part of the project comprises the preservation and conservation of the Paul Senn Archive, transferring it to its new location, research on it, and making it accessible to the public again.

At the homepage www.paulsenn.ch you have the option, according to specific search criteria, of consulting some 1500 documentary images in the form of PDF files. In 2007 the retrospective exhibition: Paul Senn the Photojournalist took place in the Kunstmuseum Bern and was accompanied by a comprehensive publication. 

Project management
Markus Schürpf, History of Photography Office, Bern 

Contact
Kunstmuseum Bern Bernische Stiftung für Fotographie, Film und Video FFV
Hodlerstrasse 8-12
3011 Bern
Switzerland
T +41 31 328 09 44

For more information see www.paulsenn.ch