Michel Comte: Aviator

Description

This book is a visual biography of the legendary Swiss aviation pioneer Alfred Comte (1895-1965). Combining historical photos and documents with texts by Comte's son (also Alfred) and grandson the photographer Michel Comte, the book is the first to comprehensively explore the aviator's extraordinary life and achievements. Alfred Comte grew up in the village of Delsberg in the Berner Jura, where his brother had a carpentry shop and Alfred became obsessed with building model airplanes. At the time, newspapers lauded the courageous first aviators-and Comte's dream was born. At the age of 17, he took a taxi from Gare du Nord to Villacoublay, where a plane crashed just yards from the still moving vehicle. Unmoved, Comte spent his savings on flying lessons on an early Morane machine; he was a fearless and calculated student and soon made his first solo flights as well as forays into aerobatics. Comte joined the Swiss Air Force at the outbreak of the First World War, during which Oskar Bider selected him to train 63 young pilots. Among them was the avid photographer Walter Mittelholzer, who later became Comte's first partner in the Comte Mittelholzer & Cie, which in time became Swissair.

Born in Zurich in 1954, the multimedia artist Michel Comte studied in France and England, and began his career in art restoration, specializing in contemporary art; his restoration works include those by Andy Warhol, Yves Klein and Miro. In 1979 Comte met Karl Lagerfeld who gave him his first commercial assignment for Chloe and later Chanel. He has since collaborated with Vogue Italia, Vanity Fair and Interview, and with brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Gianfranco Ferre, Calvin Klein, BMW, Ferrari and LVMH, among many others. Comte later traveled to conflict zones to raise funds for humanitarian projects such as "People and Places with No Name." In 2008 he met Ayako Yoshida and has since dedicated more time to art and personal projects; together they produced their first 3D feature film The Girl From Nagasaki in 2013. Comte opened "Neoclassic," his exhibition on the rise and fall of neoclassicism, at the National Gallery of Parma in fall 2016. He has completed four exhibitions from his "Light" series: at Museo Maxxi, Rome; La Triennale, Milan; Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing; and most recently at Dirimart, Istanbul. "Light" is a study of natural landscapes through large-scale sculptures, photography, video installations and projections, exploring the impact of environmental decline on the world's glaciers and glacial landscapes. Comte's books with Steidl include Aiko T (2000), Michael Schumacher: Driving Force (2003) and Light (2016).