Eugenio Schmidhauser: photography beyond Malcantone, between art and tourism

The Museo d’Arte della Svizzera italiana(MASI) in Lugano, in its Palazzo Reali venue, is hosting from March 16 to October 12, 2025 the first institutional exhibition dedicated to Eugenio Schmidhauser (Seon, 1876 - Astano, 1952), one of the most significant protagonists of Ticino photography. Through a selection of some ninety photographs, the exhibition entitled Eugenio Schmidhauser, Beyond Malcantone offers a rediscovery of a photographer who, while known as one of the fathers of the Canton’s tourist imagery, was able to push the boundaries of traditional commercial and tourist photography of the time. The exhibition, curated by Gianmarco Talamona and Ludovica Introini, is the result of extensive research work on Schmidhauser’s photographic fund, kept at the State Archives of Canton Ticino. In fact, the Brentano-Motta family of Brugg deposited this heritage, until then largely unknown, allowing the rediscovery of numerous unpublished shots. A true journey through time that traces the main stages of the photographer’s career and offers the public a new view of his work.

“The project is part of MASI’s initiatives aimed at rediscovering artists’ archives,” emphasizes Ludovica Introini, co-curator of the exhibition, “with a particular focus on historical photography and regional heritage, which is of fundamental importance for the territory and for the collective memory of a community, between past and present.”

"Eugenio Schmidhauser, Beyond Malcantone, the exhibition project at MASI,“ argues Gianmarco Talamona, ”intends to bring out a new chapter in Schmidhauser’s photographic production, capable of trespassing from the canons of tourist photography - often criticized for its pursuit of the picturesque and the caricatural - and to move into ’a cultural milieu in which borders come to fall, between Appenzell and Bavaria, between Astano and Europe, between one imaginary and another. Rather brief, however, Schmidhauser’s photographic season was extraordinarily intense and articulate, capable of combining artistic expression and the promotion of tourism in decidedly innovative ways, with the support of a technique that perhaps no one else in Ticino at the time possessed."

Schmidhauser’s production, spanning the period from 1900 to 1950, witnesses a stylistic and cultural evolution that goes far beyond the mere tourist representation of Ticino. The images on display are partly vintage, made with classic glass plates, and partly new prints, which manage to restore all the depth and quality of the original works. The selection includes the postcards and illustrations for the 1906 book Fröhliches Volk im Tessin, but also a series of previously unpublished works that reach as far as Appenzell, expanding the photographer’s geographic and cultural horizon. In particular, a section of the exhibition is devoted to Astano, the village where Schmidhauser lived for many years. Here the photographer built a kind of intimate relationship with the local people, capturing the daily life of the village. Astano’s photographs reveal a unique sensitivity in capturing events and landscapes, where nature and culture mingle in a visual narrative that goes beyond simple tourist images.

Indeed, Schmidhauser’s photographs exhibit a high degree of direction and composition. From the images of the traditional crafts of Ticino, immortalized with an almost artisanal technical perfection, emerges a work that plays on authenticity and artifice, creating scenes that, even in their obvious construction, seem to tell of a genuine and vivid world. Another interesting aspect of the exhibition concerns the influence German photographer Rudolf Fastenrath had on Schmidhauser’s career. Fastenrath, a German entrepreneur and physician, commissioned Schmidhauser to take many of his photographs. His influence can also be felt in the images Schmidhauser took in Appenzell, where the photographer made bucolic scenes depicting an ideal of rural life. This work of constructing an idyllic and patriotic image of Appenzell, with grazing cows and couples in traditional costume, was also reflected, albeit in different tones, in Ticino.

Alongside these better-known images, the exhibition provides a space for another side of Schmidhauser’s production: artistic photographs. These, characterized by an innovative use of light and a more dramatic aesthetic, move away from the tourist canon and closer to Romantic and Symbolist pictorialism. The images taken around Lake Garda, for example, are characterized by dark tones and atmospheres of solitary beauty, displaying an artistic sensibility rare in a photographer of that period. Schmidhauser’s artistic photographs, taken during his time as a student at the Lehr- und Versuchanstalt für Photographie in Munich, are striking in their elegance and treatment of light. Some of these works won major international awards, such as the gold medal in Dresden in 1909 for the famous Among Olive Trees and Cypresses, or the bronze medal in Rome for The Cypresses on Lake Garda.

Schmidhauser’s photographic season declined drastically after 1910, when the artist began to devote himself to running the Astano Post Pension and other activities related to local life. Nevertheless, his interest in his adopted village never waned, and he continued to portray Astano and its inhabitants, creating a visual record that today stands as a valuable testimony to a changing community. The exhibition Beyond Malcantone restores a new vision of Schmidhauser’s work and at the same time offers an opportunity to reflect on the role of photography as a tool for constructing the image of a territory and as a means of artistic expression. A reflection that is further enriched by the publication of the volume Eugenio Schmidhauser, edited by the two co-curators and enriched with essays by experts such as Gianmarco Talamona, Damiano Robbiani and Stefano Spinelli, published by the State Archives of Canton Ticino.

“Today we no longer demand from this iconography the dissemination of an authentic image of rural Ticino in the early 20th century,” explains Damiano Robbiani in his essay in the volume accompanying the exhibition. “From artifacted folkloric scenes, these photographs have become documents illustrating the work of constructing a tourist imaginary that in the past has been too severely characterized as a tourist subculture.”

In parallel with the exhibition, MASI has organized a series of side events, including film screenings and meetings, such as the one scheduled for May 6 at the LAC venue, where the influence of Schmidhauser and his contemporary photographer Donetta will be discussed. In this sense, as the title Eugenio Schmidhauser, beyond Malcantone itself states, the exhibition project at MASI intends to bring out a new chapter in Schmidhauser’s photographic production, capable of trespassing from the canons of tourist photography-often criticized for its pursuit of the picturesque and the caricatural-and moving into a cultural environment in which borders come to fall, between one imaginary and another.

Eugenio Schmidhauser: photography beyond Malcantone, between art and tourism

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