Walter Pfeiffer - Böcker

A humorous tribute to Matteo Thun, one of Italy’s most distinguished designers and architects, and his work. In the summer of 2009, Swiss photographer Walter Pfeiffer made an extensive trip from Zurich to the Italian island of Capri, taking shots of some 50 of Thun’s design objects en route. Yet, rather than doing a mere documentation of these items, Pfeiffer created highly lively tableaux vivants. The artist was accompanied on his journey by Thun’s two then teenage sons, who thus form the main visual narrative of the book and appear in many pictures together with their father’s creations. A brief introduction by Matteo Thun’s wife Susanne and an index of the depicted design gems round out this extraordinary and entertaining visual travelogue.

In 2001, Edition Patrick Frey published Welcome Aboard, a compilation of Walter Pfeiffer’s photographs from 1980 to 2022. The book revealed Pfeiffer’s importance as a pioneer of contemporary photography and laid the foundation for his rise from a classic “artist’s artist” to a world-renowned artist who went on to work for international magazines like Vogue and shoot campaigns for luxury brands like Bottega Veneta. Chez Walti retraces the arc of this recent work over the past 23 years and shows how Pfeiffer ?ne-tuned and renewed his photographic gaze, absorbing in?uences from the current zeitgeist even while remaining unmistakably himself in both his personal and commissioned work. Pfeiffer’s light, witty touch and unfailing eye for beauty are the hallmarks of his gorgeous guys and cheeky gals, lush still lifes and bucolic landscapes, chic fashion and bare skin. Chez Walti catapults us into Walter Pfeiffer’s weightless parallel universe, whose magic has intensi?ed over the past two decades.