Martin Schliessler (1929 - 2008)

"Profession: Adventurer" was the title of Martin Schliessler's book, published in 1972, in which he described his eventful life. And adventurous it really was: Schliessler, an excellent mountaineer in his youth, worked for decades as a photographer and award-winning documentary filmmaker. He had a special passion for Alaska, where he also lived for a time with his family. 

The son of a sculptor couple, Otto and Gertrud Schliessler, he always maintained a keen interest in his parents' art; when things finally got a little quieter in the globetrotter's life at an advanced age, he himself concentrated entirely on painting and sculpture.

In the last two decades of his life, he produced numerous paintings and more than 50 portrait busts, and it was not long before the art scene took notice of the sculpting filmmaker; soon Schliessler was presenting his works in a series of exhibitions.

His depictions of animals show the connecting line between documentary film art and sculpture: it is the precise eye for nature that enabled him to work out the smallest details with precision, and it is in equal part the compositional art of the cameraman, who knows how to put his subject perfectly into the picture.