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...
Deutsche Welle English
By Lutz Pehnert
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For the first time in decades, Walter Schels, one of the most important German photographers of his generation, is showing a selection of rare vintage prints of his famous animal portraits. A cabinet exhibition will also feature some of his dog photographs from the seventies.
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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

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to ON THIS DATE IN PHOTOGRAPHYThe 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

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,”
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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
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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 ...
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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
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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 ...
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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
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Walter Schels ist einer der großen deutschen Fotografen unserer Zeit. Seine Charakterstudien von Künstlern und Politikern brennen sich ebenso in die Köpfe der Betrachter wie seine Fotos von Neugeborenen oder die mehrfach ausgezeichnete Hospiz-Reportage Noch mal leben vor dem Tod. Im Interview mit unserem Redakteur Christian Popkes blickt Schels zurück auf sein eigenes Leben – auf die Musik, seine Zeit in Amerika, die ersten Jobs und schicksalhafte Begegnungen.
Interview: Christian Popkes
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Fotograf Walter Schels zeigt Blumenstilleben in der Galerie Hilaneh von Kories.
Von Belinda Grace Gardner
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In seiner neuen Serie widmet sich der Hamburger Künstler Walter Schels in der für ihn typischen Bildsprache dem Motiv der Blume. Schönheit und Vergänglichkeit, Pracht und Verfall, Liebe und Tod....
Profifoto 1/2012
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Portfolio and Interview by Rosanna Checchi
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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.
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Mit seiner Kamera fängt Walter Schels Extremsituationen des menschlichen Lebens ein.
Von Eva Eusterhus.
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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
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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
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Ein Photonews-Fragebogen zum 80. Geburtstag.
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