Concept

Ernst Brunner

Summary
Ernst Brunner (born December 5, 1901 – June 1, 1979) was a Swiss documentary and ethnographic photographer. Brunner completed a carpentry apprenticeship in his father's company in Mettmenstetten. From 1918 he went on a walking tour. From 1923 to 1925 he attended the Schreiner-Fachschule in Nuremberg and the class for interior design at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich. In 1929 he left the carpentry trade and moved to Lucerne, where after having been influenced by the ideas of the Bauhaus, Brunner worked as an interior designer at Theiler + Helber. During the Depression he lost his job. In 1936 Brunner worked on an inventory of historical monuments in the context of a public employment program for the unemployed. He put to use his skills as a photographer which he had taught himself in the 1920s. By chance he showed his avocational photography to publisher 'Regina Verlag' in Zurich and was soon photographing for the influential national magazines Schweizer Heim and Schweizer Familie from 1936 until the 1950s. His main subject matter was everyday life in traditional rural Switzerland, focusing particularly on agriculture and craft. Brunner experienced a rapidly changing rural Swiss life and he wanted to preserve this world and the inherited knowledge of farmers who worked hard without mechanical help, with few resources and close to Nature in glorious alpine regions. Brunner was systematic as a photographer, using the camera to document his subjects objectively. He composed his photos with strong and simple forms, often shooting from above or below his subjects, seeking more effective descriptive visual information. He made photo sequences on the same subject, or to document a work or social process, as he wanted to capture the rural world accurately. Longer sequences of images document workflows and put great emphasis on the involvement of the historical, geographic and social environment, for example, when he photographed craftsmanship.
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