Photographers

Balthasar Burkhard (1944–2010) was an influential Swiss photographer celebrated for his monumental black‑and‑white images and his pioneering role in establishing photography as a major contemporary art medium in Europe. Born in Bern, he trained under photographer Kurt Blum before opening his own studio in 1965. His early career was shaped by his close collaboration with curator Harald Szeemann at Kunsthalle Bern, where he documented groundbreaking exhibitions and developed a deep engagement with contemporary art practices.

Burkhard came to international prominence in 1969 with a series of large‑format photographs made in collaboration with artist Markus Raetz. Together they developed innovative techniques for printing photographs directly onto canvas at life scale, decades before such methods became standard in contemporary photography. His move to the United States in the mid‑1970s brought further recognition: between 1976 and 1978 he taught photography at the University of Illinois in Chicago, and exhibited widely in Chicago and New York.

After returning to Switzerland in the 1980s, Burkhard continued producing the large‑format monochrome works that would define his career — striking close‑ups of body parts, animals, plants, architecture, desert landscapes, and vast urban panoramas. His images are marked by depth of field, clarity, and a monumental presence that transforms everyday subjects into sculptural, almost metaphysical forms. A key figure of late‑20th‑century European photography, Burkhard’s work reflects influences ranging from Japanese aesthetics and Tanizaki’s writings on shadow to the materiality of Gustave Courbet’s painting.

Throughout his life, Burkhard exhibited internationally, including at major institutions across Switzerland, France, Germany, and the United States. His works are held in leading museum collections such as Fotomuseum Winterthur, Kunsthaus Zürich, and Fondation Cartier. He remained committed to the physical craft of printmaking, personally overseeing the production of his monumental prints. Burkhard died in Bern in 2010, leaving behind a body of work that profoundly shaped the vocabulary of modern photographic art.