Northwestern University Collection > SERIES: Helene Fischer Films

SERIES: Helene Fischer Films

Abstract
This series is comprised of over 750 elements (mostly 16mm) related to Helene Fischer's filmography. Fischer, whose niece donated the films to Northwestern University after Fischer died, was a Swiss nature and travel photographer in the 1950s through '70s. Many of the elements (which include camera originals, prints, negatives, magnetic soundtracks, A&B rolls, trims and outtakes) were shot in the continents of Africa and South America and inside the state of Alaska. Images of Somalian, Ethiopian and Peruvian natural life, market places, villages, fishermen, soldiers and children are captured throughout her films. Other sites Fischer visited and filmed were the Galapagos Islands, Manitoba, Bohemia, Bali, and her home country of Switzerland. The collection is partially processed.
Inclusive Dates
circa 1958 – 1972
Series identifier
S.2015-08-0001
Extent
755 reels
Subject
Animals
Travel
Nature
Creators
Fischer, Helene (was created by)
Helene Clara Millie Fischer was a nature and travel photographer. Born in Switzerland in 1900, Fischer was the daughter of Emma and Johann Jakob Fischer, who together with his brothers had made a fortune by making wickerwork for straw hats. She grew up with a sister and two brothers in Meisterschwanden in the stately "Villa Dubler." She attended the Geneva Conservatory, where she was taught by Joseph Szigeti, and later went on tour with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. After her father's death in 1920, the family gave up the factories in Meisterschwanden. Around this time, Fischer was placed in a sanatorium in Davos due to a lung disease. Here she became an accomplished skiier, winning the first Parsenn-Derby in 1924.

While in Berlin in the early 1930s, Fischer met the Frenh journalist Titaÿna, who was looking for a photographer for a trip to Indonesia in 1934. Fischer posed as a photographer by passing off other people's photographs as her own, took a few lessons from an amateur photographer and studied specialist literature during the three-week crossing. Together the two women published several reports from Southeast Asia.

Fischer later sold series of photographs to National Geographic, Vogue and Lufthansa magazines. From the early 1930s onward, she also published numerous photo reports from Southeast Asia, South America and Africa in Swiss magazines such as the Zürcher Illustrierte and Schweizer Illustrierte, of which her pictures of the pygmies and Mangbetu in particular caused a stir in the late 1950s. Fischer was often accompanied by fellow photographer Penny Converse on her travels. Among others, Converse photographed the writer Ernest Hemingway, with whom the two women were friends. Fischer and Converse were avid big game hunters, often posing with their kills in photographs.

Fischer also made films in the 1960s, primarily distributed under Helene Fischer Productions. The advertising film Let's Go Places Davos, which she directed, was made in the winter of 1963-'64 and debuted in 1965 for the 100th anniversary of the spa town. The cameraman was Heinz Hölscher, and the film was narrated by Gerald Mohr. At some point, Fischer bought land in Davos and had her "Chalet Safari" built on it, while also maintaining an apartment in Munich and traveling constantly between the US, Africa, and Asia.

Helene Fischer died in Munich on April 13, 1978 from a heart attack. She was buried in Zurich.

Series Items

Browse All Objects
Somalia: A New Vacation Paradise
Film
Somalia: A New Vacation Paradise
circa 1972
To request more information about the items in this collection, please contact the archive at info@chicagofilmarchives.org.
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