Agony + Ecstasy Gallery announces the release of Walter Rudolph, Ibiza 1976, a photography book edited by gallery founder Emma Salahi and published by Agony + Ecstasy. The book released on 29th April 2026.
German-born photojournalist Walter Rudolph spent much of his life travelling the world, working with Thomson (TUI) and Iberia to promote emerging holiday destinations during the tourism boom of the 1960s and 1970s. Shot on colour Kodak film and frequently published in travel brochures and international photo agencies, his photographs documented a world on the cusp of mass tourism, from Hong Kong and Kenya to Portugal, Italy and across the Mediterranean. Travelling with his wife, also a keen photographer, Rudolph brought a curious and unhurried eye to each new place. Agony + Ecstasy Gallery represents the photographer exclusively and sells his photography as limited edition prints.
In 1976, his work took him to the Balearic island of Ibiza, then an emerging destination growing in popularity with European tourists. The hippie movement was sweeping the island and visitors revelled in the easygoing Ibizan lifestyle, its beaches and hedonistic nightlife. What Rudolph captured there was something far more enduring than a set of promotional images: a time capsule of Ibiza on the cusp of its discovery by the rest of the world.
His gaze is natural and unimposing, compositions unstaged and shot as though viewing each location through a casual eyeline. Natural sunlight is a recurring instrument throughout the work; a preference for golden hour renders his photographs sharp, saturated and lustrous. The archive covers the full texture of Ibizan life in 1976: pea-sized Fiat 600s lining cobbled streets during the siesta rush hour, shoppers in Ibiza Town, chic crowds gathering at the Penta Club, seal shows at the now-legendary Fantasilandia zoo, and Dalt Vila with its narrow stairs, the El Corsario restaurant, and Placa de Vila crowded with vintage cars. Local Ibicenco donas in traditional dress whitewashing their houses sit alongside Iberian air hostesses posing with airline passengers, reflecting the very beginning of the island’s modern tourism era.
Rudolph’s sense of colour and composition recall the visual world of Wes Anderson: precise, warm and of its moment. The archive is underpinned by the bittersweetness of inevitable change, and it is this quality that gives it weight both as a historical document and as a body of photographic work. The photographs garner a great sense of nostalgia to the viewer, featuring places in Ibiza which have stood the test of time, and places which have long gone.
The book has been edited by Emma Salahi, founder of Agony + Ecstasy Gallery, which is dedicated to unearthing rare photographic archives from the island and beyond. This is Salahi’s second photography book, following her debut publication Oriol Maspons Ibiza, published by IDEA in 2024, which sold out within a week of release. It features forewords by Juan Suárez, respected Spanish journalist and editor, who reflects on the island’s cultural richness in the 1970s, and Emily Steer, British art journalist, who writes on Rudolph’s instinct for the authentic. Together they frame the archive as a portrait of a world that was, and a reckoning with the knowledge that its best years are probably behind us. This publication is a continuation of Walter Rudolph’s legacy.
To mark the release, Agony + Ecstasy Gallery will host a launch event at Soho Farmhouse on 13th April 2026, ahead of the official release date of 17th April. The book and photographs will be presented at Photo London (14th to 18th May) with a signing at the gallery’s booth, and an event at The Standard London’s Library Lounge is in development for the same week. A further launch is planned with IDEA at The Standard Ibiza in June/July 2026, with an accompanying exhibition of photographs from the book.
Walter Rudolph: Ibiza 1976
Edited by Emma Salahi
Published by Agony + Ecstasy Gallery
Forewords by Juan Suárez and Emily Steer
Limited edition of 500
€60 / £50 / $70
Available from agonyecstasygallery.com ,ParticularatJondal,PEPE,RacoVerd,andIDEA
