Nostalgias of Malta (Images of Geo Fust from 1930)

Nostalgias of Malta (Images of Geo Fust from 1930)

Malta has all but forgotten Geo Fürst, the great photographer of the 1930s; his name and works remain only familiar to keen antique postcard collectors, and those Melitensia lovers who treasure his tree pre-war books, al quite difficult to come by, one exceeding scarce. In 2002 the London-based Malta Study Circle printed a catalogue of Fürst’s Maltese postcards, the painstaking work of Derek Mann assisted by various collectors; concurrently, but independently, I researched and published a brief biographical sketch. These two initiatives seem to have generated a substantial amount of interest. I came round to believe the time was ripe to revisit his photographic work and let the public at large share in an enjoyment that only the few fortunate owners of Fürst illustrations already experience. My attention was not to edit a coffee-table volume of overwhelming, if vacuous, images, but a pregnant historical register of a fast-disappearing Malta, as frozen on  film by a sensitive psychoanalyst of the national spirit during the inter-war years. the fact that the artist who charged himself with this record-making also clothes his effigies in superb aesthetic garments can only count as non-taxable added value.

By: Giovanni Bonello

Format: Hardback

No of pages: 212