Cherchez La Femme

Cherchez la femme! collects more than a hundred portraits of women by the Zürich photographer Walter Pfeiffer, most of them shown here for the first time.

Edition Patrick Frey published the book in 2007 as its number 66, with a design by Hanna Williamson-Koller. The publisher lists a hardcover of 188 pages with 133 color images, measuring 26 by 19 cm. Its text places the pictures between snapshot and staged scene and says they pursue beauty and glamour with irony and wit.

Pfeiffer was born in 1946 in Beggingen and is based in Zürich. Frey’s biography says he photographed for the underground gay zine scene for many years, with a breakthrough around the turn of the millennium, especially after Frey published Welcome Aboard in 2001. His work is in the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Fotomuseum Winterthur and the Bundeskunstsammlung Bern, among other collections.