Paul Senn

Boy at the Sonnenberg home in Kriens, canton of Lucerne (c. 1944)

Paul Senn (14 August 1901 – 25 April 1953) was a Swiss photographer and one of the leading Swiss photojournalists between 1930 and 1950. His photography documented everyday life and working conditions in Switzerland as well as the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War and post-war Europe. His work for the Zürcher Illustrierte and later Du brought him national recognition.

Biography Paul Senn was born on 14 August 1901 in Rothrist. He completed an apprenticeship as a graphic artist in Bern between 1917 and 1921. In 1930, he established a studio in Bern and produced photographic reports for several newspapers and magazines.

In 1930, Arnold Kübler recruited him to the Zürcher Illustrierte, where he joined the magazine’s core photographic team. He contributed to more than 40 Swiss and foreign illustrated magazines.

In 1951, Senn co-founded the Kollegium Schweizerischer Photographen.

Work Much of Senn’s photographic work was produced for illustrated magazines as reportages that brought together images and text on political, social and everyday subjects.

Early work and the Spanish Civil War Senn produced socially focused reportages in Europe and the United States and was an early practitioner of colour photography. His reportage work in Switzerland included May Day demonstrations and trade union meetings.

On his first visit to Spain in 1933, Senn visited Pablo Casals. Between 1937 and 1939, he returned to Spain and produced reports on the Spanish Civil War. In January 1939, Senn photographed Spanish refugees crossing into France at Le Perthus. His reportages on children placed in institutions or with farming families exposed poor living conditions and caused public controversy.

He also documented everyday scenes in Bern’s Old Town, including tradespeople working outdoors, children playing in the streets and washing carried out on rooftops. The home required the boys to perform hard physical work, provided little education and subjected them to mistreatment. In a separate 1944 report, Senn and Surava documented the case of a boy who had been sexually abused by his foster family.

Senn's two United States journeys resulted in approximately 10,000 negatives, 1,500 colour transparencies and 80 reports.

Senn's work was shown posthumously at the Swiss Foundation for Photography in 1981, while the Kunstmuseum Bern's first comprehensive retrospective in 2007 brought renewed attention to his little-known post-war colour photography. Further exhibitions were held in Perpignan and Rivesaltes in 2019, with the latter devoted to his photography of the Spanish Civil War.

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