Gerhard Winkler

Fish soup à la Marseillaise – cut and slice two leeks and two onions and put them in a saucepan with a few spoonfuls of oil. Stir fry them briefly. Add two sliced tomatoes. Heat the ingredients on the stove for a minute, stirring constantly. Now add two cloves of finely diced garlic, a stick of dried fennel, one laurel leaf and the ground peel of an untreated lemon, and pour 2 litres of water on to the mixture. Add 1 kg of rock fish, for example: small crayfish, shrimps, girelle, gurnards, scorpion fish, or small conger eels, as well as the required quantity of salt and pepper. Leave the mixture to boil on a high flame for 15 minutes. Then strain off the bouillon into another saucepan by squeezing the fish through a sieve with the aid of a wooden spoon, in order to obtain all the juice. Put the bouillon you have prepared back on the stove and allow it to boil. Add 500 grams of vermicelli, and a pinch of saffron. Then boil the mixture a little longer over a low flame and serve.

From: La cuisine provencale, de J.-B. Reboul, P. Tacussel Editeur, Marseille.

Gerhard Winkler has been photographing fish continually for more than 25 years now: and generally just before he, or a person of his trust, prepares them for eating. From his shots, he makes hand-colored, silver gelatine prints, after photographing the fish in their natural sizes against a white background. In this way, he consciously situates his works formally in the tradition of artistic natural-scientific illustration.

With his glazing technique, he creates photographs of astonishing vividness. Over the years, he has created an extensive archive of edible fish from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic in this way. Winkler’s presentation is supplemented by a few of his wax sculptures on the same theme.

Following the exhibition, Gerhard Winkler’s novel Krakenkaufen (buying octopi) will be published. To coincide with the occasion, a special edition will be published in a circulation of 40 copies at a price of 280 € each. It includes the book, containing approx. 980 pages and approx. 50 full page color charts, as well as a hand-colored silver-gelatine print on barium paper. Potential buyers can choose from a framed print of Sardine No. VI or the Small Dragon’s Head in 24 × 30 cm format.