Peter Moeschlin

Peter Moeschlin was born and was active in Basel, where he was apprenticed to Carl Hoffmann (1883–1969) and then took various employment as a photographer, including (from 1943 to 1947) in Studio Eidenbenz, founded in 1933 by the brothers Hermann, Reinhold and Willi Eidenbenz, who also employed Robert Frank. Moeschlin spent eight months in England in 1947 as freelance reportage photographer and the following year spent several months in French North Africa. He was a reporter for Die Woche in the early 1950s, leaving to take up freelance professional work. In 1951, in partnership with Christian Baur, he opened the Atelier Moeschlin + Baur in Basel, producing architectural, industrial, advertising and art photography, and publishing a picture book on Pablo Casals 1956. He made a 20 minute documentary film Gefahr Nordwest. Seenoteinsatz in der Nordsee ('Danger North-West: sea rescues in the North Sea') during 1956-8, and in 1959/60 he was an assistant director and manager of film productions. After 1967 he returned to working from his own photographic studio.

Awarded the Eidgenössisches Stipendium (Federal Art Scholarship) in 1950, in 1955 Moeschlin was recognised with acceptance into the Kollegium Schweizer Photographen and in the same year his low-angle picture of two elderly women in animated conversation in the street was selected for MoMA’s world-touring The Family of Man exhibition curated by Edward Steichen.

• 1949, Basel, Gewerbemuseum, Photographie in der Schweiz - Heute. • 1952, Luzern, Kunsthaus, Weltausstellung der Photographie. • 1999, Basel, Museum Tinguely, Sali Sepi - di Jeannot. • 2004, Basel, Historisches Museum Basel, Blickfänger. Fotografien in Basel aus zwei Jahrhunderten.