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René Groebli (born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1927) secured his place among the elite of Swiss post-war photographers with his 1949 portfolio MAGIE DER SCHIENE (RAIL MAGIC). In the early fifties Groebli worked as reporter for Life, Picture Post and other international magazines. During the following years he owned a studio for industrial and advertising photography. In 1957 the American Color Annual named him MASTER OF COLOR.
In the early 80s Groebli stopped working for adver-tising and rediscovered for himself the possibilities of expression that black-and-white photography offers. In 1999 the Zurich Kunsthaus (Art Museum) showed a representative selection of his photographs from the years 1946 to 1996.
René Groebli
Zurich/Switzerland
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THE EYE OF LOVE / DAS AUGE DER LIEBE
Photographed 1953
In 1955, the U.S. CAMERA ANNUAL carried a representative presentation of the edition:Ten photographs on eight pages, commented as follows:
THE EYE OF LOVE is a tender photoessay on a photographer's love for a woman, his wife, (…) published in bookform. U.S. Camera is happy to be able to present excerpts from this warm and beautiful story by a young Swiss photographer.
1954 – Two original editions with 25 photos:
DAS AUGE DER LIEBE
(700 copies with German text)
THE EYE OF LOVE
(300 copies with English text)
2002 – Private re-edition after the original 1954 German edition
(600 numbered and signed copies)
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BURNT TREES
Photographed 1980–1990
Tree skeletons left after the yearly forest fires in the South of France.
A special technique is used to achieve a pronounced grain structure to reduce visual elements to their essence.
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FEMALE-X
Created 1982–1984
Combinations of two complementary images, one always in black-and white, the second either in colour or also in black-and-white.
Some of the 69 signed and hand-fashioned booklets of a special edition, each containing 47 original black-and-white photographs, are still available, please inquire.
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IRLAND
Photographed 1981
The 59 illustrations in the book IRLAND have been reproduced by the collotype process and printed at ARTE, Adrien Maeght, Paris, during the summer of 2000, on a Voirin press built in 1895.
Only a limited number of high quality prints can be produced on the collotype press. Every sheet is printed individually and meticulously checked.
Limited edition, German only, 350 copies, numbered and signed, 32 x 21,5 cm, on the cover an original print on fibre base paper. Some copies still available at € 380.–.
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NUDES
Photographed 2001-2002
In the attic of his second home – an old farmhouse in the Vosges, France – Groebli set up a place to create a series of artful nudes, in analogue black-and-white and with his trademark graininess that emphasises the essential.
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N.Y. MELANCHOLIA
Photographed 1978
Can cities be melancholic? Perhaps when their heydays are irrevocably over and history flakes out of their patina?
Yet New York – does it grant the visitor time and space for this feeling? The pulsating rhythm of life and the mental state circumscribed with this slow and heavy word “melancholy” seem to be irreconcilable opposites.
A metropolis versus a sentiment – out of this tension René Groebli created his New York photographs.
Groebli's images from New York were published in the portfolio N. Y. MELANCHOLIA. It is a swan song of modern civilisation. Groebli's photographs chart his passionate quest for subjective expression and photographic poetry – between black-and-white and colour, between reality and dream.
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N.Y. VISIONS
Created in the Darkroom 1978
New York perceived as the modern-day Babylon
In the solitude of the darkroom the magician Groebli handles his negatives, checks his emotional state and creates his own pictorial language. An ingenious way of treatment developed over many years allows him to achieve intentionally a grain structure that makes undesired details disappear.
With his arsenal of mysterious creative interventions in the lab he puts personal emphasis, condenses visual elements to their essence and thus gets distinctive results: his photographic language.
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RAIL MAGIC / MAGIE DER SCHIENE
Photographed 1949
Photographic essay photographed with Rolleiflex in France, mostly in Paris and its suburbs.
Two editions of fifteen photographs were printed in heliogravure:
1949 – MAGIE DER SCHIENE (700 copies with German text)
1949 – RAIL MAGIC
(300 copies with English text)
2006 – RAIL MAGIC
Edition of the complete series of 64 photographs
2009 – Facsimile of the original 1949 German edition
(300 numbered and signed copies)
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Anliker-Keller, Bern (CH)
ISUBJEKTIVE FOTOGRAFIEStaatliche Schule für Kunst und Handwerk, Saarbrücken (D)
Exposition mondiale de la photo, Lucerne (CH)
ISUBJEKTIVE FOTOGRAFIE 2Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Handwerk, Saarbrücken (D)
Galerie 16, Zürich (CH)
KOLLEGIUM SCHWEIZER PHOTOGRAPHEN, Helmhaus, Zürich (CH)
ITHE FAMILY OF MAN, MOMA, New York, (USA)
Galerie 58, Rapperswil (CH) “Dye Transfers”
ISCHWEIZER PHOTOGRAPHIE VON 1840 BIS HEUTE, Kunsthaus Zürich (CH)
IFANTASTIC PHOTOGRAPHY IN EUROPE IICanon Photo Gallery, Amsterdam (NL)+(EUR)
RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIEArles (F) “Babylon, Babylon”
Galerie Portfolio, Lausanne (CH) “Babylon, Babylon”
Images Gallery, New York (USA) “Fantasies”
IFANTASTIC PHOTOGRAPHY, Canon Photo Gallery, Amsterdam (NL)+(EUR)
Galerie Neufeld, Au/St.Gallen (CH) “Fantasies”
Galerie Dieuzaide, Tououse (F) “Fantasies”
Galerie Contact, Bordaux (F) “Fantasies”
Limbach Galerie, Köln (D) “Babylon, Babylon”
IFNAC-Etoile, Paris (F)+(F)
IEUROPEAN MUSEUMS COLLECTION, Kunsthaus Zürich (CH)+(EUR)
SAMMLUNG OTTO STEINERT, Museum Folkwang, Essen (D)
Galerie Poseidon, Zürich (CH) “Hommage au féminin”
ISUBJEKTIVE FOTOGRAFIE (USA)+(D)+(B)+(S)
Galerie Djélal, Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (F) “Hommage au féminin”
LE TRAIN, C.N.P., Paris (F)
COLLEZIONE FONTANA Centro Maestri Stranieri (I)
ITarazona 91 (E) “Retrospective”
ICentre de la Photographie, Genève (CH) “Rétrospective”
Mairie du Xe/Mois de la Photo, Paris (F) “Rétrospective”
Galerie Renée Ziegler, Zürich (CH) “The Eye of Love”, “Trains”
Brandenburgische Kunstsammlung Cottbus (D) “Visionen”
La Chapelle des Pénitenciers, La Ciotat (F) “Trains”
Montpellier, (F) “Trains”
Galerie Camera Obscura, Paris (F) “Trains”
Kunsthaus Zürich (CH) “Grande Rétrospective”
Galerie Commercio, Zürich (CH) “Irlande”
IMusée de l’Elysée, Lausanne (CH) “New York après New York”
Nikon Image House, Küsnacht/Zürich (CH) “Nus”
Fondation Koenig, Zürich (CH) “Trains”
PARIS PHOTO, stande Csaba Morocz (F) “The Eye of Love”, “Trains”
Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco “Trains”
Maison Robert Doisneau, Gentilly-Paris, “Trains”
Galerie Stasia Hutter, Bâle, “Mouvements”
Galerie DeArtis, Zug, “N.Y. Melancholia” + “Babylon, Babylon”
Galerie infocus, Colognes, “Trains”, “The Eye of Love”, “Nudes”
Kamera- und Fotomuseum, Leipzig, “The Eye of Love”, “Trains”
Galerie Andy Jllien, Zurich, “Retrospective”
Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, “Trains”
aplanat Galerie, Hamburg “Retrospective”
Galerie infocus, Cologne “Various”
Galerie Hiltawsky, Berlin “Retrospective”
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