RENE BURRI – LARGER THAN LIFE
2012-05-07Having worked for the prestigious Magnum agency since 1982, producing some of the most iconic photographs of our age. The Swiss photographer’s work has been collected and exhibited worldwide as well as being in nearly every major magazine for over the last 60 years. Larger than Life features René Burri’s most iconic and celebrated works presented for the first time in a monumental size and limited edition.
Born in Zurich in 1933, Burri studied design and composition, and worked as a documentary filmmaker before turning to photography during military service. In 1955 Burri had made his first contact with Magnum through Werner Bischof, when his first reportage was on deaf-mute children, which was published in LIFE as well as other European magazines. Henri Cartier-Bresson famously sent Burri away to work on a defining body of work. The resulting work was taken over a six month period, which was a photographic poem on the life of Gauchos on the Argentinian Pampas, which consequently cemented his membership of Magnum in 1959. Burri was 26 when eventually Gauchos was published in 1968. He achieved international recognition with the publication of Die Deutschen (The Germans) in 1962 displaying a powerful portrait of a changing nation in the immediate aftermath of World War II, in the style of Robert Frank’s Americans, at a time when the memory of the war and the consequences of defeat were still evident and recovery was just beginning.
Opposite – São Paulo, Brazil, 1960
Exhibition runs through till June 9th, 2012
Atlas Gallery
49 Dorset Street
London
W1U 7NF
United Kingdom
