On the death of René Burri – The man with the the-way view – Süddeutsche.de

Already his very first photo should go down in history later: When 13-year-old René Burri photographed Winston Churchill in 1946 in an open limousine. Later he portrayed Che Guevara and Pablo Picasso. Now the Swiss photographer died.

From Andrian Kreyenfeld

There are two historical pictures from the Argentine hero of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara. One is from 1963 and was made by the Swiss photographer René Burri, who died on Monday now. It shows Che already in the pose of the ruler. He was at that time Minister of Industry, sat in a bad mood in the rooms of his office, between his lips a Cohiba cigar.

The other picture was taken three years earlier, because the revolution was still young and the Cuban photographer Alberto Korda Che portrayed as heroes, directed the battle weary eyes under the beret in the distance. Burri and Korda met years later. Korda brought his Swiss colleagues with a deduction, under which he had written: “by your friend Korda, the creator of, as you have to admit, most famous photos of Che”. Kora’s image was indeed become a holy picture of the ’68, graced countless T-shirts and posters.

“by your friend Burri, the creator of how you got to admit, best photos of Che,” his first picture already would later go down in history

When René Burri Che-photo recorded, he himself was long famous. Even his very first photo should be received later as a masterpiece in the history of photography. He had taken as 13-year-old when his father he expressed his camera in his hand and he photographed in 1946 Winston Churchill, as he standing drove upright in an open limousine through Zurich. Had

His international breakthrough with the extensive photo-essay “The Germans”, which he began in 1957 to 1997 and added again and again and expanded. As a neutral Swiss, he was free to travel to both parts of Germany. It was an unsparing look he threw because the defeated, divided and torn in Nation. When the first edition of his book appeared in 1962, he was celebrated in New York, Paris and London. In Germany they hated him for it. Profound fatigue and leaden gloom weighed on Burris Germany, debris and those joyless architecture of the post-war years were not a touch of warmth to.

For Magnum René Burri traveled the world. He documented many of the major wars and historical events. But became famous mostly his pictures with the eyes the-way, the exemplary, not the historical moments. He portrayed the greats of his time, such as Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Le Corbusier, directed documentaries about China, about the Six Day War and migrant workers in Switzerland. Well he died in Zurich from cancer. He was 81 years old.