Publisher's Synopsis
In 2006, Vera Mercer (b. Berlin, 1936; lives and works in Omaha, Nebraska,
and Paris) started taking photographs of ravishing still lifes with sumptuous
flower arrangements, freshly shot game, and skulls. She occasionally also
integrates friends into these theatrical productions, in a nod to her past as a
portrait photographer: during her marriage to Daniel Spoerri in Paris, she
captured artists in their studios as well as strangers in the city's cafés. This
book presents Mercer's most recent creations: affecting and uncompromising
tableaux vivants whose composition and palette are without equal. In an
interview in 2014, the artist said: "Life and death are two magnificent things.
I wish my photographs would convey that even more strongly." Her still lifes
are the realization of a lifelong dream. With flowers in full bloom, ripe fruit on
the verge of spoiling, and dead creatures, her art is a quintessential memento
mori and at once an encomium of life.
