The photographic legacy of Robert Häusser in Ibiza

The temporary exhibition at the Museu Puget, Arxiu de la memòria, opening this Saturday, brings together a collection of images provided by Christina Bechtold, taken by the German photographer between 1966 and 1990 in the Pityusic Islands

Curated by Elena Ruiz Sastre, the exhibition includes several photographs that illustrate Häusser’s friendship and artistic affinity with Erwin Bechtold.

The exhibition dedicated by the Museu Puget to Robert Häusser (Stuttgart, 1924 – Mannheim, 2013) stems from a long-standing friendship between the photographer and artist Erwin Bechtold (Cologne, 1925 – Sant Carles, 2022). It is Bechtold’s widow, Christina Bechtold, who has lent the photographs that make up the exhibition, opening this Saturday, 11 April, at 12 pm under the title Arxiu de la memòria.

Curator Elena Ruiz Sastre explains that during a visit to the Bechtold home, Christina showed her a box full of black-and-white images taken by Häusser in Ibiza. The director of the museum in Dalt Vila immediately recognised that this “wonderful collection” deserved to be shown to the public, and two years later that idea has become reality.

The exhibition, which runs until 21 June, allows visitors to travel back in time and see what the Pityusic Islands were like between the 1960s and 1980s through the lens of one of the key figures of subjective photography. Ruiz explains that Häusser began taking photographs as a child thanks to his mother, who gave him his first cameras. As a teenager, he was strongly influenced by the paintings of Rembrandt, master of chiaroscuro, which shaped his style.

Between 1941 and 1942, Häusser studied at the Stuttgart School of Graphic Arts and published some of his photographs in the press, but his studies and career were interrupted when he was drafted into the German army. After the end of World War II, he was interned in a US camp and later moved to his family’s farm in Brandenburg, where he worked as a farmer while continuing his studies at the Weimar School of Applied Arts and practising photography.

During this early 1950s period, he mainly captured rural landscapes and countryside life. According to Ruiz, these images are marked by “a sense of solitude and abandonment”. From 1952 onwards, after moving to the Federal Republic of Germany and settling in Mannheim, where he opened his professional studio, his work entered a more luminous phase, “with more light, brilliance and movement”.

Ruiz also highlights Häusser’s concern for the profession and the status of photographers, which led him to contribute to the creation of the Association of Independent German Photo Designers, later evolving into the German Academy of Photography. He also became president of the German Photographic Society, promoting a critical reassessment of photography’s role during the Third Reich.

In the 1970s, the theme of death became prominent in his work, with images focusing on cemeteries, funerary scenes, crosses, ruins and dead animals. During this period, Häusser gained full recognition and his work became associated with what is known as “subjective or author photography”. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across Europe and the United States, and in 1995 he received the International Photography Award from the Hasselblad Foundation.

Photographic series were a constant throughout his career. Among them, Ruiz highlights his most famous series from 1983, 21 Doors of Benito Mussolini, symbolically representing the years Mussolini was in power as Prime Minister of Italy between 1922 and 1943.

Friendship with Bechtold

The friendship between Häusser and Erwin Bechtold, which inspired this exhibition, began in the 1960s around the Galerie Lauter in Mannheim, where both artists exhibited. Häusser first travelled to Ibiza in 1966 and became so captivated by the island that he purchased a finca in Sant Carles near Bechtold’s home, Ca n’Andreuet, where he lived intermittently for decades.

Through Bechtold, he became integrated into the local cultural scene and, by 1970, had already exhibited at the iconic Galerie Carl van der Voort. Ruiz also highlights his participation in the 1971 group exhibition Eros and Contemporary Art in Spain in Madrid, alongside other Ibiza-based artists such as Bechtold, Horst Haack and Jo Imog.

The exhibition

After reviewing Häusser’s career, the curator focuses on the content of Arxiu de la memòria. His sensitivity and “great respect for composition and framing” are evident in each of the black-and-white photographs, all taken in Ibiza between 1966 and 1990.

The exhibition is divided into three rooms. The first explores the close friendship between Häusser and Bechtold, with images taken in the painter’s home and studio, some captured by Häusser and others by Christina. It also highlights “points of intersection” between their artistic work. To emphasise this connection, Ruiz has selected a painting by Bechtold, usually displayed at the Museu d’Art Contemporani d’Eivissa, and placed it alongside two photographs by Häusser showing the artist at work.

These pieces share “a subtle confrontation between permanence and transience, between stillness and movement”, a recurring theme in Häusser’s work.

The other two rooms feature images of Ibiza’s port and Dalt Vila, streets of the old town, Ses Salines, churches such as Sant Jordi, Sant Joan and Puig de Missa, rural landscapes, windmills and portraits of children and elderly people. The selection also includes a photograph of the finca where Häusser lived in Sant Carles.

The exhibition is complemented by a catalogue displayed in a glass case in Room I, featuring works from 1940 to 2000 and showcasing the evolution of his photography and themes.

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