Scrapbooks 1969–1985

Scrapbooks 1969–1985 reproduces Walter Pfeiffer’s scrapbooks, in which Polaroids and prints alternate with clippings, postcards, packaging, tickets and brief punning notes.

Edition Patrick Frey published the book in 2012 as its number 125. Martin Jaeggi edited it and Studio Achermann designed it. Frey lists a hardcover of 460 pages with 224 color images and marks it out of print. Its text calls the scrapbooks both a visual diary and a creative foundation for Pfeiffer’s later work, and says they show his humor, his interest in Eros and popular culture, and his eye for the poetry of the everyday, as a record of the 1970s and 1980s.

Pfeiffer was born in 1946 in Beggingen and is based in Zürich. Frey lists other books by him, among them Welcome Aboard (2001), Cherchez la femme! (2007), Chez Walti and Bildrausch. Drawings 1966–2018. Frey’s biography says he photographed for the underground gay zine scene for many years before his work reached a wider audience around 2000.