Billingham, Richard.Ray’s a Laugh. Zurich: Scalo, 1996.
Buck, Louisa. ‘‘I only make pictures...everything else is a
bonus.’’Art Monthly13 (March 2003).
Colin, Anne, and Charles Penwarden. ‘‘Turner Prize 2001:
Tate Britain.’’Art Press277 (March 2002).
Corbetta, Caroline. ‘‘Billingham’s TV Fishtank.’’Flash Art
(International Edition)32, no. 205 (March/April 1999).
Cork, Richard. ‘‘At Home with Ray and Liz.’’The Times
(June 9, 2000).
Estep, Jan. ‘‘Ha Ha, Ray’s a Laugh.’’New Art Examiner27,
no. 1 (September 1999).
Godfrey, Tony. ‘‘Birmingham and Dublin: Richard Billing-
ham.’’The Burlington Magazine142, no. 1170 (Septem-
ber 2000).
Lewis, Jim. ‘‘No Place Like Home: The Photographs of
Richard Billingham.’’Artforum International35 (Janu-
ary 1997).
Haworth-Booth, Mark. ‘‘Shooting Stars, Richard Billing-
ham.’’British Journal of Photography17 (January 1996).
Home, Stewart. ‘‘Richard Billingham: Ikon Gallery, Bir-
mingham.’’Art Monthlyno. 238 (July/August 2000).
Hornby, Nick. ‘‘Life Goes On: Richard Billingham.’’Mod-
ern Painters10 (Winter 1997).
Pagel, David. ‘‘Family Portraits.’’ Los Angeles Times
(March 14, 1997).
Richard Billingham. Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 2000.
Roth, Nancy. ‘‘Closeness as Metaphor.’’Afterimage28, no. 2
(September/October 2000).
Smith, P.C. ‘‘Richard Billingham at Luhring Augustine:
New York.’’Art in America85 (May 1997).
Turner, Grady, T. ‘‘Richard Billingham: Luhring Augus-
tine.’’Flash Art(May/June 1997).WERNER BISCHOF
Swiss
Although relatively young when he died, Werner
(WernerAdalbert)Bischofwasoneofthemostinflu-
ential international photojournalists of the period
following World War II. His most well-known pic-
tures combine intense observations of his subjects
and a technical perfection out of which arises a strik-
ingbeauty.Hisdocumentaryphotographsespecially
set a new standard for the genre.
Born in Zurich, April 26, 1916, Bischof was
raised in Waldshut, Germany, where he received
his basic and secondary education. He returned to
Switzerland to attend the Kunstgewerbeschule in
Zurich (Zurich School for Applied Arts), where he
took a newly established photography course from
Hans Finsler, one of the most important advocates
of the technically-oriented photography of the Ger-
man ‘‘New Vision’’ (Neue Sehen) school. Under
Finsler’s influence, Bischof photographed large
numbers of plants, shells, and various other sub-
jects in a dispassionate, technical style. After his
studies, Bischof worked as an independent designer
and photographer in the fields of fashion and
advertising in Zurich-Leiten, 1936. In 1938, he
took a position at a Zurich publishing house, but
also worked as a graphic and interior architectural
designer. In 1939, he designed a pavilion for gra-
phic design and worked for the fashion pavilion at
the Swiss National Exposition.
During a stay in Paris in the same year, he decided
to suspend his photographic activities to concen-
trate on painting. The beginning of hostilities in
1940 forced his return to Switzerland where he
served in the military until 1942 and during this
time he returned to photography. In 1942 Bischof
began experiments with light and shadow effects,
publishing the results in the magazineDu. He soon
became a regular contributor and began to work as
a photojournalist, choosing a path that was basi-
cally in opposition to his object-oriented education
and experience to date. Artificial arrangements in
the studio were left behind. The ravages of war
caused him to take up what would become his pri-
mary subject: people. His subjects were not specta-
cular catastrophes or atrocities, but the devastating
effects of war both internalized by those who sur-
vived it, and expressed by the environments in
which they had to survive. Bischof controlled the
forcefulness of his statements by use of subtle fram-
ing of what might first appear to be casual snap-
shots. In 1944–1945 Bischof, as a member of the art
group Allianz, published his first reportages. Dur-
ing this time his photo essays,Der Zirkus (The
Circus) and Die Invaliden (The Invalids)—early
examples of the form in color—were published. In
1945 after he spent time with Italian partisans who
had sought refuge in the Swiss state, Tessin.Die
Flu ̈chtlinge (The Refugees) was a result of thisBISCHOF, WERNER