Walter Schels

born 1936 in Landshut, southern Germany, worked from 1957 to 1965 as a window dresser in Barcelona, Canada und Geneva before moving to New York to become a photographer. In 1970 he returned to Germany and became known for his charakter studies of artists, politicians and famous names from the world of arts and letters. For decades he as portrayed animals and flowers with the same intensity. 




A passionate explorer of physiognomy, Walter Schels sets out to make the essence and personality of a figure visible in the photograph. In various long-term photographic series, blind people, the disabled, prematurely-born children and young trans* people, for instance, Schels has pursued exceptional situations in human life. He has recieved many awards for his series depiction hospice patiients shortly before and after their death, in cluding the Hansel Mieth Prize, the World Press Photo Award, a gold medal fom the Art Directors Club, Germany and a Lead Award.

Walter Schels has lived and worked since 1990 in Hamburg. He has published various books and his works are includede in many siginificant art collections and have been shown in countless exhibiitons in Germany and wordlwide, including the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, the DZ Bank in Frankfurt, the Wellcome Collection in London, C/O Berlin, the Mori Art Museum inTokyo, the House of Photography at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt and the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.

"Walter Schels' gaze is profoundly searching, empathetic, and despite its close-up vision (...) maintains respectful discretion" F. C. Gundlach

Press

Tory Burch and Humberto Leon unveil new LA concept store with cat-inspired interior
Tory Burch and Humberto Leon unveil new LA concept store with cat-inspired interior
designboom
Walter Schels brings cat-and-mouse game to Tory Burch store.
Jan 2024
Walter Schels. Life.
Walter Schels. Life.

Exhibtion video, Internationales Haus der Photographie in den Deichtorhallen HamburgJul 2019

Fotograf Walter Schels: A master of portraiture
Fotograf Walter Schels: A master of portraiture
For more than 50 years, photographer Walter Schels has been taking haunting black and white portraits of celebrities such as Andy Warhol and the Dalai Lama, but also of animals, which he portrays as if they were equal counterparts. His current theme is a long-term project: he accompanies the gender reassignment process of transgender young people. An exhibition at the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt is now focusing on Schels' studies of faces. By Pauline Herrmann 
07.09.2022
The undisguised face
Walter Schels has been photographing people and animals for five decades. The Hessian State Museum presents black and white photographs that show him as a master of portraiture. Von Katharina Deschka
09.09.2022
HANDS
HANDS
Deutsche Welle English
Who are we, when we are born? Are we a blank slate waiting to be written on? Photographer Walter Schels has a passion for human physiognomy ... By Lutz Pehnert
Nov 2016
Walter Schels
Walter Schels
The particular interest in human behavior has framed the work of Walter Schels and made him perhaps one of the most prolific German photographers in the post-war period. The long lasting artistic career of his reflects the artist’s constant examination primarily of the face as the mirror of the soul. His black and white photographs perfectly depict one’s psychological state and are often intimate, quite emotional, compassionate and respectful. Although portraits are his forte, Schels has also released over the years a notable series of urban landscapes and animal portraits which follow the same logic in the sense of composition and approach ... By Hugo Hess
On this date in  Photography – Animated
On this date in  Photography – Animated
The animal pictures by Walter Schels (*1936), currently showing at Galerie Peter Sillem at Dreieichstraße 2, Frankfurt am Main in the exhibition Tiere ('Anmals') until February 23rd., may serve to confirm the possibility, at least, of a true 'animal portrait' ... By James MM Cardle
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How One Photographer Overcame His Fear of Death by Photographing It By David Rosenberg
How One Photographer Overcame His Fear of Death by Photographing It By David Rosenberg

As a child growing up in Munich toward the end of World War II, Walter Schels was greatly affected by death, having witnessed the casualties of air raids.  “I was afraid of death and coffins my whole life and I avoided seeing any dead bodies, even those of my parents." By David Rosenberg
10.08.2014

Life before Death by Walter Schels & Beate Lakotta
Life before Death by Walter Schels & Beate Lakotta
to pdf-download
Nr. 35 / April 2018
Powerful Portraits of Individuals Before and Directly After Their Death
Powerful Portraits of Individuals Before and Directly After Their Death
Photographer Walter Schels was terrified of death, so much so he refused to see his mother after she passed away. Upon entering his 70s, Schels finally decided to overcome his fear through a bold, bizarre project – photographing individuals before and directly after their death. The black and white portraits are a clinical confrontation with the the unknown. By Jenna Garret
Sep. 24, 2014
Verso la fine della vita
Verso la fine della vita
The Economist, Italy
to pdf-download
Faces of Life and Death
Faces of Life and Death
The faces of hospice patients before and after death are captured in a stirring art exhibit that opens in London this week. The collection of photographs is by German photographer Walter Schels, 72. They are accompanied by vivid and poignant interviews that his partner, Beate Lakotta, recorded with the portrait subjects in the final days of their lives. By Tara Parker-Pope
April 9, 2008
This is the end
This is the end
German photographer Walter Schels was terrified of death, but felt compelled to take these extraordinary series of portraits of people before and on the day they died. His partner Beate Lakotta recorded the poignant and revealing interviews with the subjects in their final days. The couple tell Joanna Moorhead how facing death changed how they felt about dying – and living. By Joanna Moorhead
April 1, 2008
Death portraits shared around the world
Two days ago, the Guardian published in G2, and on the website, a series of photographs by a German photographer, Walter Schels, and his partner Beate Lakotta. The subject matter was death: the pictures consisted of a series of portraits of people both before and - crucially - after death. In the hours after the pictures and article went online, the Guardian website experienced its busiest day ever trafficwise, much of it driven by users keen to see the pictures and to read the interviews ...
to Guardian
April 3, 2008
Suddenly Everything Matters - Portraits of the dying
As Susan Sontag once mused, "all photographs are mememto mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality vulnerability, mutability." Today a photographic project such as Life Before Death may seem like a morbid pursuit, but from it's early history the photographic medium has offered distinctive documentation, acknowledgement and commemoration of death and the dead....by Aaron Schuman
PDF DOWNLOAD
foam magazine, 9.Dezember 2008
Walter Schels Animali
Portfolio and Interview by Rosanna Checchi
to pdf
January February 2010
In Schels' Schatzkammer
In Schels' Schatzkammer
Er gehört zu den profiliertesten Porträtfotografen der Gegenwart. Mit eindrücklichen Nahaufnahmen von Menschen und Tieren wurde er berühmt. In PHOTOGRAPHE zeigt Walter Schels erstmals seine neueste Arbeit: morbide Stilleben floraler Motive. Ein Studiobesuch.
to PDF

Photographie 05/2011
Letzte Fotografien. Totenbilder von Walter Schels
Die Fotografie fixiert den Augenblick, als wolle sie ihn einfrieren. Sie hält fest, was nicht festzuhalten ist: die Erscheinung einer Landschaft, eines Dings, eines Menschen. Indem sie den Zeitfluss unterbricht, vollzieht sie eine Art von Tötung ...
Von Thomas Macho
PDF Download (304 kb)
1. November 2004
Under the guise of medical history, the Mori gets radical
Under the guise of medical history, the Mori gets radical
Don't be distracted by the big names showing at "Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love" – Da Vinci, Okyo, Damien Hirst – the jewels of the show lie in the obscure - timeworn or contemporary (...) Personally, I found the surgical saws and ocular tools implied a more real gruesomeness. But Walter Schels' works will make you forget whatever came before. By Donald Eubank
04.12.2009

Books

Animal Portraits
Animal Portraits

Walter Schels, a passionate portraitist and photographic researcher of the human physiognomy, photographs animals as great portraitists photograph people: with sincerity and a deep desire to capture the very essence of those portrayed. With a preface by the biologist and animal psychologist Dennis C. Turner
English
Edition Stemmle, Zürich/New York 2001

Walter Schels. Life
Walter Schels. Life
Walter Schels. Trans*
Walter Schels. Trans*

Modular Work Catalog
Vol. 11
For several years, photographer Walter Schels and journalist Beate Lakotta accompanied young people who perceive themselves as girls but were born in a boy's body and vice versa. Schels' portraits make the difficult process of becoming one with oneself visible. In interviews, the trans girls and boys talk about self-rejection and self-discovery, solidarity and exclusion, friendship and bullying, experiences with parents, siblings and first love.
German/English
Fotografenverlag

Andy Warhol – Joseph Beuys
Andy Warhol – Joseph Beuys
Modular Work Catalog
Vol. 10
In 1980, two world artists met: Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, whose work superficially has little in common, exhibited together in a Munich gallery. The art collector and great Beuys supporter Franz-Joseph van der Grinten described this as a "star encounter". The photographer Walter Schels, then at the beginning of his artistic career, used the opportunity to take portraits. In classic black-and-white portraits, movement studies, solarizations, overpaintings and collages, he dealt with both revolutionaries of contemporary art. This publication, produced with the kind support of Neustart Kultur and the German Cultural Foundation Fund, makes the diversity of this cycle of works visible for the first time.
With texts by Franz-Joseph van der Grinten and Walter Schels
German/English
Fotografenverlag

Gullydeckel
Gullydeckel
Modular Work Catalog
Vol. 6
"In the late sixties, I moved to New York to become a photographer. On my walks through the city, I discovered the variety of manhole covers, which is particularly large in New York. Since then, I have brought manhole cover photos home from every trip. My collection includes pieces from Reykjavík, Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai, Bangkok, Istanbul, Frankfurt ... there are thousands. And yet, when I have one on the light table or a contact sheet in front of me, I can almost always tell where it was taken." 
With texts by Walter Schels and Manuel Gasser
German/English
Fotografenverlag
Menschen
Menschen
NY Street Photography
NY Street Photography
Modular Work Catalog
Vol. 04
In the late sixties, Walter Schels went to New York to become a photographer. He had no training; until then he had earned his living as a window dresser. As a "complete beginner with a Leica around his neck" (Schels on Schels), he kept a diary with his camera as he wandered through Manhattan. The great portraitist's interest in people can already be seen in his early, previously unpublished reportage pictures. The photos taken during this period are published here for the first time.
With a text by Walter Schels
German/English
Fotografenverlag
Life Before Death. Encounters With The Terminally Ill
Life Before Death. Encounters With The Terminally Ill

Modular Work Catalog
Vol. 14
Few experiences are likely to affect us as profoundly as an encounter with death. Yet most deaths occur almost covertly, at one remove from our everyday lives. Death and dying are arguably our last taboos – the topics our society finds most difficult. We certainly fear them more than our ancestors did. Opportunities to learn more about them are rare indeed.The photographer Walter Schels and the journalist Beate Lakotta spent over a year in hospices in northern Germany. They made portraits of 26 peoloe who were very close to death. All of them agreed to be photographed shortly before and after death. The project articulates the experiences, hopes and fears of the dying, and gives them one more opportunity to be heard.
With texts by Beate Lakotta
English
Fotografenverlag

BLUMEN | Flowers
BLUMEN | Flowers

Modular Work Catalog
Vol. 08
"Withering flowers achieve their own beauty and independence, because they have a life behind them - unlike all the uniformly fresh blooming tulips, roses, sunflowers. I photographed my series of old flowers from 2010-2016, partly with old Agfa, Kodak and Perutz films from the 40s to 60s. And I am an old photographer with old cameras." Seen in this light, the series shows a tribute to old age." 
With a text by Walter Schels
German/English
Fotografenverlag

Animals. Memory Game
Animals. Memory Game
Sheep, elephant, lion, rabbit - they all show character here! 40 pairs of animals, 4-page leaflet with game instructions and motif overview in German and English
Fotografenverlag
Dogs. Memory Game
Dogs. Memory Game
Poodles, dachshunds, boxers, bassets - they all show character here! 40 pairs of dogs, 4-page leaflet with game instructions and motif overview in German and English
Fotografenverlag
Manhole Covers. Memory Game
Manhole Covers. Memory Game
New York, Nairobi, London, Berlin: discover the works of art in the asphalt of the metropolises! 40 pairs of manhole covers, 4-page leaflet with game instructions and motif overview in German and English
Fotografenverlag
HÄNDE
HÄNDE

Walter Schels has always been fascinated by hands. When he portrayed personalities from politics, culture and the intellectual world, he also photographed the palms of their hands. The result is fascinating and haunting black-and-white portraits of unusual closeness and directness. His pictures are complemented by texts by journalist Beate Lakotta; in her essay, she describes the insights into human beings that sciences such as evolutionary biology, genetics and anthropology draw from the shape of their hands. With photographs of Angela Merkel, Helmut Schmidt, Yehudi Menuhin and the Dalai Lama, among others.
With texts by Beate Lakotta and Walter Schels
German
S.Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt, 2016

Contact

All images are copyright. Any storage, processing or other use is prohibited and will be prosecuted.

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mail@walterschels.com


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Impressum

Walter Schels, Fotograf
mail@walterschels.com
www.walterschels.com

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Walter Schels