Opening on Saturday, 10 October 2026, 7 pm – 9 pm
Exhibition until 7 November 2026:
Wed–Fri 4.00 pm – 7.00 pm, Sat 12.00 pm – 3.00 pm
thereafter until 30 January 2027:
by telephone appointment only.
“I’ve had a fulfilling life and was able to bring many of my crazy ideas to life. In that spirit, I hope that visitors (…) will remember me and my work for some time to come.” René
We would like to give you the opportunity to appreciate René Groebli’s extraordinary life’s work and invite you to the opening of the major retrospective commemorative exhibition on 10 October 2026, the day after René would have turned 99. Alongside some of his famous iconic works, we will be exhibiting many pieces by him that have never before been shown here, some of which are extremely rare.
Born in Zurich, the photographer influenced generations of visual artists with his unwavering curiosity, his sense of movement and his poetic visual language. He leaves behind a body of work that shines far beyond the borders of Switzerland.
Groebli gained international recognition in the 1950s when, with his series *Rail Magic* (1949) and *The Eye of Love* (1954), he broke new ground between documentary observation and emotional visual composition. In “Rail Magic”, he combined technical precision and visual dynamism to create a tribute to speed, steam and movement – a photographic symphony celebrating the age of the railway. “The Eye of Love”, an intimate series about his newlywed wife, by contrast, revealed the tender, sensual side of his work and is still regarded today as a key work of subjective photography in Europe.
In the decades that followed, Groebli turned increasingly to colour photography and experimental image composition. His series ‘The Colour of Time’, ‘London’ and ‘Variation’ bear witness to an unbroken spirit of exploration – visually daring, formally rigorous and yet always imbued with a quiet melancholy. In doing so, he understood how to treat light not merely as a medium, but as a subject in its own right.
Right up to his later years, René Groebli remained a seeker, a perfectionist and, at the same time, a humanistic observer. He was one of the last living representatives of that generation which redefined photography as an art form – beyond reportage and commercialism. His works are now on display in major museums and collections worldwide, and his influence is evident in the work of many younger photographers. With his camera, René Groebli did not merely see, but felt. His work remains a silent testament to how light and time can be transformed into poetry.
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