The photographic artist Vera Mercer is internationally renowned for her opulent, neo-baroque image compositions. Mercer’s work reinterprets the classical still life. In artfully arranged tableaux, she combines crabs, fish, game, or poultry with flowers, candles, and antique objects. Rich in color, detail, and texture, and often immersed in mystical light, her photographs unfold a powerful sensual presence. They negotiate both joie de vivre and transience—without moralizing symbolism, but rather as confident, positive statements about life. While Mercer’s still lifes were long created primarily in color, the exhibition also presents more recent monochrome works. 

Created with the Leica M11 Monochrom, these images possess remarkable depth and presence, their strong contrasts and subtle tonal gradations leaving nothing to be desired in terms of color. Regardless of the medium, Mercer’s visual language remains unmistakable: baroque in appearance, yet contemporary and marked by great formal clarity. Her still lifes are rooted in her early photographic interest in culinary culture and everyday life. As early as the 1960s, she photographed the bustle of traders and the abundance of meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables in the Paris market halls of Les Halles. This direct encounter with unprocessed food continues to shape her work to this day. Communal dining forms a central point of reference: the arranged foods do not serve the image alone—they are eaten afterwards.

About the Artist

Vera Mercer was born in Berlin in 1936 and established her reputation as a photographer in Paris during the 1960s. Deeply rooted in the avant-garde, she documented the work and lives of major artistic figures such as Jean Tinguely, Eva Aeppli, Marcel Duchamp, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Daniel Spoerri. Her portraits possess an intimate, private character while also serving as important historical documents of their time. 

Since 1970, Mercer has lived primarily in Omaha, Nebraska, where she and her second husband, Mark Mercer, played a key role in the development of the Old Market District. Since the early 2000s, she has increasingly devoted herself to still life photography, for which she has received international acclaim. Today, she lives and works in Omaha and Paris.