Eugenio Schmidhauser: Beyond the Malcantone

MASI Lugano presents the first museum exhibition dedicated to the photographer Eugenio Schmidhauser (Seon, 1876 - Astano, 1952). With a selection of around 90 vintage photographs and new prints from original glass plate negatives, the show in Palazzo Reali is an opportunity to rediscover a photographer who has always been viewed as playing a key role in shaping the image of tourism in the Ticino area. The exhibition is the result of lengthy research and cataloguing work on the Schmidhauser archive, deposited by the Brentano-Motta di Brugg family at the State Archive of the Canton of Ticino, which has brought to light a series of previously unpublished, little-known works. As well as offering an overview of the main elements of Eugenio Schmidhauser's work, for the first time it presents a number of significant artistic prints that the photographer exhibited in important international shows in the early twentieth century. A selection of his best-known images – his famous series of postcards or the illustrations for the 1906 publication Fröhliches Volk im Tessin – is accompanied by a number of previously unexhibited works dedicated to the Appenzell regione, offering a broader view of his tourism-related images. Lastly, there is a special section dedicated to Astano, the village he developed a special bond with, regularly capturing its streets, scenery and people from the beginning of the century until 1950.

In this sense, as the title Eugenio Schmidhauser, beyond the Malcantone indicates, the exhibition in MASI sets out to illustrate another element of Schmidhauser's oeuvre, going beyond the canons of tourist photography – often criticized for its focus on the picturesque and the caricatural – and exploring a cultural environment that blurs the dividing line between Appenzello and Bavaria, Astano and Europe, one imaginary and another, explained the co-curator of the exhibition, Gianmarco Talamona.

This project is part of MASI's exploration of artists' archives, with a special focus on rediscovering historical photography and regional heritage, which is of fundamental importance for the local area and the collective memory of the community, between past and present, underlined Ludovica Introini, co-curator of the exhibition.


Constructing an image to promote tourism
Unspoilt hamlets and villages inhabited by authentic-looking locals leading a tranquil life in a pleasant climate: this is the image of Ticino that Eugenio Schmidhauser's tourism photographs set out to convey. Published in 1906 as a series of postcards, and to illustrate the poetry collection Fröhliches Volk im Tessin – devoted to the typical inhabitants of Ticino - Schmidhauser's images enjoyed widespread popularity and played a key role in making the Ticino region known beyond the Gotthard Massif. From the knife sharpener to the basket maker, clog-maker and chair-maker, the images on display from the petits-métiers series are like a little catalogue of traditional crafts of bygone times.

As well as showing his technical mastery, these sharp, precise images reveal Schmidhauser's notable directorial talent, the way he constructed scenes that mingle authenticity and artifice, often with a highly caricatural vein. Nowadays, we no longer look to images like this to get an authentic image of rural Ticino in the early twentieth century. These carefully contrived folk scenes bear witness to the process of deliberately constructing an image to promote tourism to the area; something that, in the past, was often summarily dismissed as tourism-related subculture, explains Damiano Robbiani in his essay in the book that accompanies the exhibition.

For this project, Schmidhauser was commissioned by Rudolf Fastenrath, a wealthy, eccentric German entrepreneur whose work ranged from the medical field to promoting tourism and culture, and who was to have a lasting influence on the photographer. Schmidhauser’s shots of the Appenzell area of the same period were also commissioned by Fastenrath and echo the same process of constructing a precise image to promote tourism: idyllic landscapes dotted with grazing cows, couples dressed in traditional costumes and groups of yodlers conjure up the idea of a bucolic, hard-working, patriotic region, reflecting an equally bucolic, but jauntier, more laid-back Ticino.



A new angle on Schmidhauser: the artistic photographs
The same level of technical prowess but a different aesthetic can be seen in the artistic photography of Eugenio Schmidhauser, reflecting his studies at the prestigious Lehr- und Versuchanstalt für Photographie in Munich (1901-1903). In this group of vintage prints there are several studio portraits that evince a particularly skilful use of light, employed to elegantly sculpt his subjects’ features. Deep hues and a gloomy atmosphere with lonely, dramatic overtones characterise the Lake Garda landscapes photographed around 1903, resonating with the Romantic, Symbolist current of pictorialism that Schmidhauser probably encountered while he was studying in Munich. Some of these photographs also stand out for their size, something he achieved using sophisticated technical devices including a special magnifier on runners. Several shots from this series won awards at prestigious international exhibitions Schmidhauser took part in between 1903 and 1914. These include Among the Olive and Cypress Trees, which won the gold medal in Dresden in 1909, while The Cypress Trees of Lake Garda received a bronze medal at the International Art Photography Competition in Rome.

At the National Exhibition in Bern in 1914, Schmidhauser also exhibited a portfolio of images of the postal service in rural Ticino. From images of Quinto, Madrano, Astano and Sonogno, to the portraits of the postman with his donkey between Cerentino and Bosco Gurin, the MASI show includes several of these. They are precious works that testify to the vast area covered by the postal service in the Canton of Ticino and which have gained renown over the years.

Schmidhauser's output began to diminish after 1910, due to his work running the Pensione della Posta guesthouse in Astano and his increasing involvement in village associations and politics. Yet he continued to photograph his adopted village and its inhabitants, as evidenced by several images on show in MASI: the carnival group, the hay-making, the planting celebration at Mount Rogorio and naturally the guests in his pension, which also served as a photographic set.

Though his photographic career was fairly short, it was nonetheless incredibly intense and complex, blending artistic expression and the promotion of tourism in decidedly innovative ways, thanks to a technical mastery perhaps not possessed by anyone else in Ticino at the time, concludes Gianmarco Talamona.

The exhibition sees the publication of the book Eugenio Schmidhauser, with essays by Gianmarco Talamona, Damiano Robbiani and Stefano Spinelli, published by the State Archive of the Canton of Ticino.