[ABOVE] A carte-de-visite portrait of  a middle-aged man by "O. P. Suisse", from the studio of Lombardi & Co., 79 West Street, Brighton (c1902).

[ABOVE] A carte-de-visite portrait of  a child by "O. P. Suisse", from the studio of Lombardi & Co., 79 West Street, Brighton (c1899). Negative No. 982462.2. The reverse of this carte-de-visite portrait carries the written inscription "By the hair, I reckon it's W. A. J. Wheatley". William Arthur John Wheatley was born at Hurstpierpoint, Sussex during the Third Quarter of 1895.

Otto Pfenninger was born in Switzerland in 1855. (The birth of a child named Otto Pfenninger, the son of Hans Konrad Pfenninger and Anna Schnorf was recorded at Hinwil in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland on 5th April 1855, but this might be a Swiss child with an identical name). Pfenninger's connection with England was established in 1883, when he married Sophia Loose (born 1859, Catthorpe, Leicestershire) at Horsham in Sussex. Sophia Loose was born in Leicestershire on 28th May 1859, the daughter of Eliza and James Loose. Sophia's father, James Loose, was born in 1831 at Doveridge, Derbyshire, but settled in Surrey, where he married his wife Eliza (born c1833, Shirley, Surrey). At the time of the 1881 census, James Loose was residing with his wife, Eliza and their youngest daughter Dinah in the Surrey village of Burstow, where James Loose worked as a gardener. Sophia Loose, James and Eliza's twenty-one year old daughter does not appear in the index of the 1881 British census and therefore was possibly living abroad, where she may have met twenty-six year old photographer Otto Pfenninger.

The marriage of Otto Pfenninger and Sophia Loose took place in the district of Horsham in West Sussex during the First Quarter of 1883. After their marriage, the couple returned to Otto's native country of Switzerland. In 1883, Otto Pfenninger and his wife were living at St Gallen in Switzerland. Around this time, the couple's first child James Pfenninger was born. During their stay in Switzerland, Otto's English-born wife, Sophie, became a Swiss subject. Around 1887, Sophie Pfenninger gave birth to a second child, a daughter named Dinah, but sadly she was born mentally handicapped.

There is evidence that Otto Pfenninger was active as a photographer before his marriage to Sophia Loose. A picture entitled "Wintry Landscape", photographed by Otto Pfenninger in 1882, is in the collection of the Foto-Historama, Agfa-Gevaert, Leverkusen. ( Because of his name, Otto Pfenninger is often assumed to be German and consequently "Wintry Landscape" made an appearance as part of an exhibition of "19th Century German Photography" held in New York in 1982 ). During this period, Pfenninger appears to have been more concerned with "art photography" than commercial studio portraiture. In August 1883, Otto Pfenninger exhibited his work at the Exposition Internationale de Photographic at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in France. Pfenninger was apparently still working as a photographer in Switzerland in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

Otto Pfenninger in Brighton

Otto Pfenninger was active as a professional photographer in England from the late 1890s. Otto Pfenninger and and his family are not recorded in the 1891 British census, but by 1898 the Swiss photographer was operating a photographic portrait studio at 79 West Street, Brighton.

The studio at 79 West Street, Brighton had been opened by Lombardi & Co. around 1876. The Lombardi studios in Brighton had been established by two Italian photographers, Antonio Martinucci (1830-1880) and Eugenio Martinucci (1849-1920), around 1864. When Eugenio Lombardi left Brighton for London, the Lombardi studios in Brighton passed to two local photographers Robert Hatt (1843-1918) and Burt Sharp (1852-1913) but they retained the name of Lombardi & Co. When the partnership between Robert Hatt and Burt Sharp (Lombardi & Co.) was dissolved early in 1883 the studio at 79 West Street, Brighton was continued by Burt Sharp under his own name. Burt Sharp operated the studio at 79 West Street until the end of 1894. By 1895, the studio at 79 West Street was again operating under the name of Lombardi & Co.

The re-emergence of Lombardi & Co in Brighton in the mid 1890s, might signal the arrival of Otto Pfenninger, but firm evidence of his activity as a portrait photographer at 79 West Street does not emerge until 1898, when Towner's Directory of Brighton listed the studio as LOMBARDI & Co. (O. P. Suisse). The signature of "O. P. Suisse" also appears on the carte-de-visite portraits produced at the Brighton studio of Lombardi & Co. between 1898 and 1903. The pseudonym of "O. P. Suisse" is not difficult to unravel - The initials O. P. represent Otto Pfenninger and the surname "Suisse" indicates the photographer's nationality.

[ABOVE] The photographer's signature of "O. P. Suisse" which appears at the foot of carte-de-visite portraits taken by Otto Pfenninger at the studio of Lombardi & Co. at 79 West Street, Brighton between 1898 and 1903.s The nom de plume of  "O. P. Suisse" appears to have been used by Otto Pfenninger only for his commercial studio portrait photography.

[ABOVE] Details of  the photographer Otto Pfenninger and his family as recorded in the 1901 census return for 79 West Street, Brighton.

The studio of Lombardi & Co. at 79 West Street, Brighton, is not listed in Towner's 1904 Directory of Brighton & Hove, but there is evidence that Otto Pfenninger was still taking photographs in the Brighton area between 1904 and 1906. When Otto Pfenninger submitted a photograph to the 49th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society in September 1904, he gave his home address as 105 Hythe Road, Brighton. Between 1904 and 1906, Pfenninger was exploring colour photography and so he may have abandoned his career in commercial portrait photography during this period of experimentation. [ Around 1906, the photographic studio at 79 West Street, Brighton was acquired by Clements & Co., a firm of photographers probably associated with Albert Charles Clements (1865-1938), a Brighton-born photographer who had previously worked in Brighton, London and Hastings ]. Many of Pfenninger's early colour photographs were taken in Brighton during the Summer of 1906.

[ABOVE] A carte-de-visite portrait of  a middle-aged man signed by "O. P. Suisse" (Otto Pfenninger), from the studio of Lombardi & Co., 79 West Street, Brighton (c1902). [BELOW] Detail from a carte-de-viste portrait showing the inscription at the foot of a photographic portrait. "O. P. Suisse" was the pseudonym or nom de plume of the Swiss photographer Otto Pfenninger

I have not traced any reference to Otto Pfenninger as a photographer in Brighton after 1906. I have not found Otto Pfenninger's name in any trade or street directories of the period, yet, according to London County Suburbs Directories *, James Otto Pfenninger, presumably Otto's son, was residing at 44 Hitherfield Road, Streatham, in South West London between 1917 and 1919.

* Post Office London County Suburbs Directory (1917) and Post Office London County Suburbs Directory (1919)

[ABOVE] Children playing on the beach at Brighton, a colour photograph by Otto Pfenninger, dated 16th June 1906. [Photograph Courtesy of the Royal Photographic Society]