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In 1945, already known as a photographer of refined images verging on the abstract, Werner Bischof made his way by bicycle through war-torn Germany, documenting signs of human life emerging from the rubble. In luminous images - of little girls playing tag in the shell of a bombed cathedral, of a young man luxuriating in the sun smoking a cigar - Bischof captured the struggles of ordinary people incrementally resuming their daily lives in a devastated landscape.
Two years later, his travels having extended through France, Hungary, Greece, and Italy, Bischof had created an extraordinary portrait of a continent's slow, anguished rebirth. As the war recedes, tentative early-morning light softening the ruins becomes afternoon glare on walls covered with movie posters. Single figures amid the devastation multiply into confident crowds in downtown squares. Ranging from the farmhouses of Poland and Greece to the burgeoning industrial cities of Italy, the photographs in this volume emanate hope and reveal battle-scarred civilians enjoying the small freedoms afforded by peace.
