René Burri

photographer

Swiss^[1] b. 9 April 1933, Zurich, Switzerland^[1] d. 20 October 2014, Zurich, Switzerland^[1] active 1955–2014

René Burri (1933–2014) was a prominent Swiss photographer and member of the Magnum Photos agency since 1955. Trained at the Zurich School of Applied Arts, he gained international recognition for his reportage on music pedagogy for deaf children in 1955. Throughout his career, Burri documented major historical, political, and cultural events across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Long March in China. He is renowned for his empathetic portraits of figures such as Che Guevara, Maria Callas, and Alberto Giacometti. His work often balanced formal rigor with a deep humanistic commitment to capturing 'intensity' rather than mere documentation. In 2013, he established the Fondation René Burri in Lausanne to preserve his complete body of work.^[1]

• Photojournalism
• Historical events
• Portraiture