Rudy Burckhardt: An Interview

Rudy Burckhardt (1914-1999) was best known as a photographer and filmmaker.  He moved to New York from his native Basel in 1935 at age 21. He shot portraits of many artists for Art News during the 1950s and early ’60s, capturing their work methods in candid and intimate photos. His films, frequently portraying cityscapes and urban life, include The Pursuit of Happiness (1940), Under the Brooklyn Bridge (1953), What Mozart Saw on Mulberry Street (1956), Square Times (1967), and Inside Dope (1971). 

“Life consists of two states,” Burckhardt says, “The ordinary waking life where things make sense, where you think you’re in control of something... and then there’s the other state—which is at least as real, if not more so—where all those things that people make up—history, achievement, development—just fall apart.”

Interview by Kate Horsfield.

A historical interview originally recorded in 1981 and re-edited in 2004 with support from the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund.