{{Short description|Swiss-American filmmaker and photographer}} {{Infobox person | name = Rudy Burckhardt | image = Rudy_Burckhardt.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Rudolph August Burckhardt | birth_date = {{Birth date|1914|4|6}} | birth_place = [[Basel, Switzerland]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|1999|8|1|1914|4|6}} | death_place = [[Searsmont, Maine]], U.S. | other_names = | occupation = {{hlist|Photographer|filmmaker}} | years_active = 1935&ndash;1999 | known_for = | notable_works = | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|[[Edith Schloss]]|1947|1961|reason=div}} * {{marriage|[[Yvonne Jacquette]]|1964}} }} | children = 2, including [[Tom Burckhardt|Tom]] | relatives = [[Burckhardt family]] | signature = Rudy_Burckhardt_Signature.png }} '''Rudy Burckhardt''' ([[né]] '''Rudolph August Burckhardt'''; April 6, 1914 – August 1, 1999) was a Swiss-American filmmaker, and photographer, known for his photographs of the hand-painted billboards that began to dominate the American landscape in the 1940s and 1950s.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nyss.org/exhibitions/rudy-burckhardt-maine/ |title=Rudy Burckhardt's Maine |website=nyss.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091113200115/http://www.nyss.org/exhibitions/rudy-burckhardt-maine/ |archive-date=2009-11-13}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/30/arts/art-in-review-rudy-burckhardt.html | work=The New York Times | first=Grace | last=Glueck | title=ART IN REVIEW; Rudy Burckhardt | date=May 30, 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Mark |editor1-last=Francis |title=Pop |year=2005 |publisher=Phaidon Press Limited |location=London |page=45}}</ref> He was married to [[Edith Schloss]] and [[Yvonne Jacquette]]. His youngest son is artist [[Tom Burckhardt]].

== Life == Burckhardt was a member of the Swiss [[Patrician (post-Roman Europe)|patrician]] [[Burckhardt]] family. He discovered photography as a medical student in London. He left medicine to pursue photography in the 1930s. He immigrated to [[New York City]] in 1935.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Katz |first=Vincent |title="Rudy Burckhardt: A Biographical Sketch" |url=http://vincentkatz.net/Criticism/criticism_rudy_parkett.htm |access-date=October 31, 2023 |website=www.vincentkatz.net}}</ref> Between 1934 and 1939, he traveled to [[Paris]], [[New York City|New York]], and [[Haiti]] making photographs mostly of city streets and experimenting with short 16mm films. While stationed in [[Trinidad]] in the [[Signal Corps (United States Army)|Signal Corps]] from 1941–1944, he filmed the island's residents. In 1947, he joined the [[Photo League]] in New York City. Burckhardt married painter [[Yvonne Jacquette]] (1934-2023) whom he collaborated with throughout their 40-year marriage. During the mid-Fifties he worked with [[Joseph Cornell]] on "The Aviary", "Nymphlight", "A Fable For Fountains", and "What Mozart Saw On Mulberry Street".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-rudy-burckhardt-1112344.html|title=Obituary: Rudy Burckhardt|date=October 23, 2011|website=The Independent}}</ref> He taught filmmaking and painting at the [[University of Pennsylvania]] from 1967 to 1975. He was the great-uncle of author [[Andreas Burckhardt]].

Burckhardt [[killed himself]] in 1999.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/reviews/oisteanu/oisteanu8-24-04.asp|title=Subterranean Monument|website=artnet.com}}</ref><ref name="NYT1">{{cite news| first=Roberta | last=Smith | title=Rudy Burckhardt, 85, Photographer and Filmmaker, Dies | date=August 4, 1999 | url =https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/04/arts/rudy-burckhardt-85-photographer-and-filmmaker-dies.html | work=[[The New York Times]] | access-date=October 29, 2014 }}</ref>

==Exhibitions (selection)== *October 25, 2014 – February 15, 2015 "Rudy Burckhardt – In the Jungle of the Big City"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fotostiftung.ch/en/exhibitions/rudy-burckhardt/ |title=Fotostiftung: Rudy Burckhardt |website=www.fotostiftung.ch |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141218024922/http://www.fotostiftung.ch/en/exhibitions/rudy-burckhardt/ |archive-date=2014-12-18}}</ref> at {{ill|Fotostiftung Schweiz|de}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fotostiftung.ch/en/exhibitions/rudy-burckhardt/|title=Fotostiftung Schweiz}}</ref> *November 4, 2011 – March 25, 2012 "The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936–1951"<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/onlinecollection/collection_results.php|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20121209133308/http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/onlinecollection/collection_results.php?artistlist=1&aid=7383|archive-date=2012-12-09|url-status=dead|title=The Jewish Museum }}</ref> at [[Jewish Museum (New York)]] *September 23, 2008 – January 4, 2009 "New York, N. Why? Photographs by Rudy Burckhardt, 1937–1940"<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2008/rudy-burckhardt | title=New York, N. Why? }}</ref> at [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] *February 1, 2008 – May 14, 2008 "Street Dance: The New York Photographs of Rudy Burckhardt"<ref>{{Cite web |title=Street Dance {{!}} Museum of the City of New York |url=https://www.mcny.org/exhibition/street-dance |access-date=2023-10-31 |website=www.mcny.org |language=en}}</ref> at [[Museum of the City of New York]] *May 9 – July 15, 2000 "Rudy Burckhardt and Friends: New York Artists of the 1950s and '60s"<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/exhibits/rudy/index.html | title=Grey Art Gallery }}</ref> at [[New York University]]

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *[http://jacketmagazine.com/21/denb-giord.html "The Cinema of Looking"], interview with Burckhardt at ''Jacket 21'' *[https://film-makerscoop.com/filmmakers/rudolph-burckhardt Film catalog] at [[The Film-Makers' Cooperative]] *{{SIKART|11282230|Burckhardt, Rudy|Autor=Martin Gasser und Elisa Bütler }} In German. *[[iarchive:mma692-01|Audio recording of Rudy Burckhardt Lecture, 1992]], from [[Maryland Institute College of Art]]'s Decker Library, [[Internet Archive]] * [http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/watch/contact_list.cfm?ArtistID=3841 Copyright permissions for Rudy Burckhardt], from the WATCH File

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Burckhardt, Rudy}} [[Category:1914 births]] [[Category:1999 deaths]] [[Category:1999 suicides]] [[Category:Filmmakers from Maine]] [[Category:Swiss emigrants to the United States]] [[Category:20th-century American photographers]] [[Category:People from Basel-Stadt]] [[Category:People from Searsmont, Maine]] [[Category:Burckhardt family|Rudy]] [[Category:Suicides by drowning in the United States]] [[Category:Suicides in Maine]]