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
read blog
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