Burri, René

He was born in Switzerland in 1933 and died in 2014. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in his hometown, Zurich, Switzerland. From 1953 to 1955, he worked as a documentary photographer and began using a Leica camera while serving in the military. Burri became a member of Magnum Photos in 1955 and gained international attention for one of his early photo essays, "Touch of Music for the Deaf," about deaf-mute children, which was published in Life magazine. In 1956, he traveled through Europe and the Middle East, and later went to Latin America, where he produced a series on gauchos that was published in the magazine Du in 1959. For this Swiss publication, he photographed artists such as Picasso, Giacometti, and Le Corbusier. He became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1959. He began working on his book "Die Deutschen" (The Germans), published in Switzerland in 1962, and by Robert Delpire the following year under the title "Les Allemands." In 1963, while working in Cuba, he photographed Ernesto "Che" Guevara during an interview with an American journalist. His images of the famous revolutionary with his cigar were published worldwide. Burri was involved in the creation of Magnum Films in 1965 and later spent six months in China, where he made the film "The Two Faces of China," produced by the BBC. He opened the Magnum Gallery in Paris in 1962, while continuing his work as a photographer; at the same time, he also created collages and drawings. In 1998, Burri received the Doctor Erich Salomon Award from the German Photographic Association. A major retrospective of his work was held in 2004-2005 at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris and traveled to many other European museums.