Walter Bosshard / Robert Capa – The Race for China
Schedule
Exhibition: Walter Bosshard / Robert Capa – The Race for China
Opening Date: October 28, 2019
Exhibition Period: October 29, 2019 – May 3, 2020
Venue: 2nd Floor Exhibition Hall, TAM
Chief Planner: Su Dan
Curator: Peter Pfrunder
Hosts:
Tsinghua University Art Museum
Fotostiftung Schweiz
Supporters:
Embassy of Switzerland in China
Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council
Swiss Federal Office of Culture
Lenders:
Fotostiftung Schweiz, Switzerland
Archives of Contemporary History (ETH Zurich), Switzerland
Ullstein Bild, Germany
The International Center of Photography, U.S.A.
The 1930s were a crucial decade for China. This exhibition at Tsinghua University Art Museum presents the work of two outstanding photojournalists who reported about China at war from different angles. The Swiss correspondent Walter Bosshard had lived and worked in China since 1931. Robert Capa, the most famous war photographer of his time, came to China in 1938 as a member of a film crew.
Walter Bosshard and Robert Capa were friends, but also rivals regarding publications in Life. They covered similar stories and found themselves observing the same scenes of war. This gives us the unique chance to present a multi-layered narrative – about the history of China seen through Western eyes, about the question of truth in photojournalism, and about the power of photography in wartime.
(Banner image by Walter Bosshard, On the way to the Confucius temple in Qufu, ca. 1938, © Swiss Foundation for Photography / Archives of Contemporary History (ETH Zurich).)
