(1927)

Rita. From the series "Das Auge der Liebe" (The Eye of Love), 1952.

Gelatin silver print. Vintage.

Image 17 x 22.4 cm; Sheet 18.2 x 24.4 cm.

Verso fully signed, with photographer's stamp, dated and annotated "Vintage". Under passepartout, and also fully signed on the passepartout.

Literature:
Gort Bischof, Walter (Text). René Groebli. Das Auge der Liebe. Zürich, 1954 (ill. cover)
Gort Bischof, Walter (Text). Groebli, René. The Eye of Love. Zürich, 2002 (ill. cover).
Filzmeier, Birgit. René Groebli. Das Auge der Liebe. Rita, in Erinnerung, 1923-2013 (ill. cover).
Groebli, René. Early Work: 1945-1955. Zurich, 2015.
Groebli, René. Das Auge der Liebe. Zurich, 2017 (ill. cover. Copy of the book included).

In his second book Groebli documented his honeymoon trip in Paris. The majority of the shots were taken in the small simple hotel room on 7 Rue Vandamne in Montparnasse (today Hôtel de la Gaîté). In the present shot, we see his wife reclining on a bed, with her head turned away from the photographer. Notwithstanding the deliberate blurring of the bed sheets in the foreground, the composition is harmonious and richly contrasting.

"Groebli followed the German-English editions policy also in his second book Das Auge der Liebe (1954), designed by Werner Zryd (as he had the maquette Black White and Things for Robert Frank in 1952). No Swiss publisher wished to publish this work either, so Groebli founded his own publishing company: Turnus-Verlag. His photographs taken in semi-darkness, in movement or with backlighting, of this intimate, narrative picture series of a journey in France with his young wife Rita, created a lyrical-erotic tension which for the 1950s was downright provocative." (Koenig, Thilo "Magie der Schiene 1949, René Groebli" in: Pfrunder, Peter (ed.). Schweizer Fotobücher. 1927 bis heute Eine andere Geschichte der Fotografie, Baden 2012, p. 171).


Rare vintage print.