A video portrait on Swiss photography icon, René Groebli.
There is a little bit of magic in the way I met the Swiss photography icon, René Groebli. The seemingly large gap of time and space that separate us disappeared in the face of a shared love for photography.
Now 95, René Groebli enjoys a relatively quiet life in Zürich after an internationally renowned career spanning over six decades of creating pioneering work that is both frozen in time and yet moves powerfully through it.
This short and intimate video portrait titled, The Man Behind the Magic, offers a glimpse into the lifework of René Groebli. With his eloquent black-and-white images with purposeful grain and trendy yet timeless op and pop art inspired colour work, Groebli takes us back in time to photography in the post-war era, his early adoption of colour, and the scandal behind his Eye of Love series created during his honeymoon in Paris in 1952.
The swissstreetcollective team and I present this video portrait today in honour of his 95th birthday. Here’s to you René.