Introduction:
In the early 1990s, I came across a small collection of five signed original images by a photographer named Othmar Pherschy. At the time I did not have a clue who Pherschy was and when I tried to research his name nothing came up. Mind you it was when the internet was still in its infancy.
I could tell from the quality of the images that Pferschy was a professional photographer. On the back of each photograph he included his name and contact details in Istanbul, Turkey as well as a hand written caption in German. On the back of one of the photographs I found a small card which indicated that the collection had been submitted to a competition in Italy:
The Biennale Internazionale entry stamp which translates, “International Biennial of Art Photo – Rome 1932 A-XI; Admitted to full vote by the jury of acceptance.” Both the stamp and Pferschy’s calling card were glued to the back of one of his photographs.
Years later, when I moved my entire archive to the United States, I came across Pferschy’s photographs buried deep in my collection. After doing some research online, I discovered Othmar Pferschy’s fascinating life story along with some information about his mentor, Jean Weinberg.
The following photography exhibition features both photographers.
