René Burri

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René Burri (2010)

René Burri (born April 9, 1933 in Zurich ; † October 20, 2014 there ) was a Swiss photographer .

Life

René Burri took his first photo of a celebrity at the age of 13 of Winston Churchill in Zurich . From 1950 he trained as a photographer at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich (now the Zurich University of the Arts , ZHdK). a. with Hans Finsler , Alfred Willimann and Johannes Itten . In addition to photo journalism, he also made documentaries and was temporarily employed as a camera assistant in a Walt Disney production. In 1955 he created a photo report about the work of the Zurich music teacher Mimi Scheiblauer with deaf and dumb children, which he then submitted to the Magnum photo agency and was accepted. After 1956 he worked as a photo reporter worldwide.

His first photo reports were printed in Swiss magazines such as Du and Camera . With his international work in various genres of photojournalism, his photo reports have been published more and more in internationally renowned magazines such as Look , Paris Match , Life , Stern and Geo .

In 1960 René Burri went public with a sensational report and exhibition The Germans . His “neutrality” as a Swiss gave him the opportunity to take pictures both in the GDR and in West Germany and thus present the two sides of divided Germany from a uniform, neutral and impartial perspective. He later processed this material into a book (first edition 1962), the new editions of which he added to current photos, etc. until the 1990s. a. the fall of the Berlin Wall, added. He was probably the only one who succeeded in attempting to show an approximately valid picture of Germany before and after the construction of the wall and before and after the fall of the wall .

In 1962 Burri portrayed Ingeborg Bachmann , Uwe Johnson and Günter Grass at the group 47 meeting in Berlin . He became particularly famous in 1963 for his pictures of the Cuban Industry Minister Ernesto Che Guevara smoking a cigar . Other well-known personalities he portrayed were Pablo Picasso , Alberto Giacometti , Jean Tinguely and Le Corbusier .

From 1959 Burri was a full member of the famous Magnum photo agency, of which he had become a corresponding member through his acquaintance with Werner Bischof in 1956. In 1988 he became the art director of Schweizer Illustrierte . In 2011 he received the Swiss Press Photo Life Time Achievement Award for his life's work.

Burri's first wife Rosellina (widow of photographer Werner Bischof), with whom Burri had two children, died in 1986. In his second marriage, he was married to Clotilde Blanc, with whom he had a son in 1994. They lived in Zurich and Paris .

On October 20, 2014, Burri died at the age of 81 from cancer at home in Zurich.

In 2020, the photographer René Burri was discovered as a graphic artist and draftsman in a large exhibition in Lausanne .

plant

For René Burri, it was not important to take a picture at the right time in the right place, but to be able to follow up pictures. His attention was given to the subsequent framing, the highlighting of certain picture elements and the typography of the legends. Like a graphic artist, he paid attention to the overall visual impression.

For Burri, the images were a newly composed reflection of reality, not a depicted reality. His style elements include the blurring in the foreground, so that the main motif is placed in the background. Or the process of accommodating different scenes in the same image - for example, Burri created a previously non-existent context in his photos by retrospectively framing them. In his reports, Burri often referred to earlier works and placed them in a new context of topicality. In the later years he revised his black and white pictures by painting over and photo montage.

With his work, Burri continued the history of man with which Edward Steichen wanted to promote understanding between people in his traveling exhibition The Family of Man in 1955 after the experiences of the war: his more than 30,000 slides are housed in the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne and supervised by a foundation. The estate of the Elysée Museum, which specializes in photography, includes 170,000 color slides, tens of thousands of paper prints and contact sheets, 150 sketchbooks, two dozen rolls of film, as well as notebooks, collages and letters.

Photo books (selection)

  • The Germans. With poems by Hans Magnus Enzensberger . Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich 1962 (simultaneous French edition: Les Allemands , Robert Delpire, Paris), German edition last as 3rd, expanded edition with an introduction by Hans-Michael Koetzle. Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-88814-988-6 .
  • Che Guevara , with an introduction by François Maspero , Photo Poche series . Nathan, Paris 1977
  • One World. Photographs and collages 1950–1983. Benteli, Bern 1984, ISBN 3-7165-0442-4 .
  • An American dream: photographs from the world of NASA and the Pentagon . Greno Verlag, Nördlingen 1986, ISBN 3-89190-742-7 .
  • 77 Strange Sensations. Story by Barry Gifford. Edition Dino Simonett, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-9521375-3-7 .
  • Arthur Rüegg (Ed.): Le Corbusier (conception with René Burri). Birkhäuser, Basel 1999, ISBN 978-0-81765-999-8 .
  • Luis Barragan . Phaidon, London 2000, ISBN 0-7148-9082-0 .
  • Photographs (texts by Hans-Michael Koetzle). Ed. Phaidon, Berlin 2004, ISBN 0-7148-9385-4 .
  • Blackout New York: November 9, 1965. Moser, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-9812344-3-5 .
  • Arthur Rüegg (ed.): Brasilia / René Burri . Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-85881-307-7 .

items

  • Chicago: Bauhaus of the New World. In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1979, 10, ISSN  0342-8311 , pp. 8-32.
  • Fifth Avenue : New York's best piece. In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1980, 6, ISSN  0342-8311 , pp. 8-34. "Of all the dream streets in the world, this one is probably the richest: in dollars as well as in contrasts." Photos for the report by Wolf D. Rogosky.

Exhibitions

  • 1966: China , Galerie Form, Zurich
  • 1967: René Burri Retrospective , Art Institute, Chicago
  • 1971: 50 Photographies de René Burri , Galerie Rencontre, Paris
  • 1972: René Burri Retrospective , Raffi Photo Gallery, New York; Il Diaframma, Milan
  • 1980/1981: The Germans , Folkwang Museum , Essen; Rudolf Kicken Gallery, Cologne; Nagel Gallery, Berlin
  • 1984/1985: One World , Kunsthaus Zürich , Zürich; Bern Photo Gallery, Bern; Center National de la Photographie et Palais de Tokyo , Paris; Musée des arts décoratifs, Lausanne (1985–1995 also in New Delhi, Havana, New York, Bratislava and Ostrava)
  • 1987: Dans la familiarité de Corbu , Musée de l'Elysée , Lausanne. An American Dream , International Center of Photography , New York
  • 1994: Dialogue avec Le Corbusier , Museo de arte moderno de Medellàn, Medellàn (1995 also in Curitiba, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and Lima)
  • 1995: Le Paris de René Burri , Center Culturel Suisse, Paris 1997 Che , Fnac-Forum, Paris; Galerie R. Mangisch, Zurich (1997–2001 also in Barcelona, ​​Lille, Lisbon)
  • 1998: 77 Strange Sensations , Villa Tobler, Zurich Die Deutschen , Fotografie Forum International, Frankfurt am Main (1998–2003 also in Kaufbeuren, Velbert, Toulouse and Burghausen)
  • 2002: Berner Blitz , Galerie Karrer, Zurich
  • 2004: René Burri - Rétrospective 1950–2000 , Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Musée de l'Elysée, Paris.
  • 2005: Lausanne (also in Milan and Zurich) René Burri: Utopia - Architecture et Architecte , Hermès Gallery, New York; Leica Gallery, Prague
  • 2005: René Burri: Photos de Jean Tinguely & Cie , Musée Tinguely , Basel René Burri: Utopia - Architecture et Architecte , Klingental exhibition space, Basel
  • 2010: René Burri: Vintage Prints - Le Corbusier Museum Bellerive , Zurich
  • 2010: I tedeschi. La Germania degli anni Sessanta nelle fotografie di René Burri , Pordenone (Italy), Galleria Sagittaria, Centro Iniziative Culturali Pordenone
  • 2010: René Burri - photographs , Kunst Haus Wien.
  • 2011: Two Worlds , Galerie Burgerstocker, Zurich
  • 2012: Burri in motion - 50 years of Cinéma , Galerie Burgerstocker, Zurich
  • 2013: Double life , Museum of Design, Zurich.
  • 2014: Double life , OstLicht , Vienna
  • 2020: René Burri. Explosion of vision . Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne.

literature

Web links

Commons : René Burri  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 100 Photos by René Burri pour la Liberté de la Presse. Reporters sans frontières (Ed.) No. 36, March 2011, p. 22.
  2. ↑ Magnum Photos, 1955: The Mimi Scheiblauer School for the Deaf
  3. ↑ Ralf Hanselle: «His likeness is explosive». In: Spiegel Online one day . June 2, 2008, accessed May 19, 2013 (interview).
  4. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Born in the darkroom. Retrieved February 14, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Zurich photographer René Burri receives prize for his life's work. In: Tages-Anzeiger . February 18, 2011, accessed May 19, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Che Guevara's photographer is dead. In: Zeit Online , October 20, 2014.
  7. ↑ Kerstin Stremmel: A man with attitude. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 20, 2014.
  8. ↑ Daniele Muscionico: The Swiss world reporter. In: Der Bund , October 20, 2014.
  9. ↑ René Burri: 1933–2014. In: Magnum Photos , October 20, 2014 (English).
  10. ↑ October 30, 2014: The Family of Man. A tribute to the work of the recently deceased photographer René Burri
  11. ↑ René Burri. Photographs, Kunsthaus Wien , November 18, 2010 to February 20, 2011, accessed on May 18, 2020.
  12. ↑ Doppelleben, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich , in: culture online, October 9, 2013, accessed on May 21, 2020.
  13. ↑ René Burri, l'explosion du regard, Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne , January 29 to June 1, 2020, accessed on May 18, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Burri, René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss photographer
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH 20th October 2014
Place of death Zurich