"In 1952, two young honeymooners checked into a small hotel in Montparnasse. An everyday story in the City of Light, perhaps. But the Swiss photographer Rene Groebli and his wife, Rita Durmuller, spent their time in Paris cocooned in their room producing a series of photographs sensual, intimate, enigmatic that would first shock then beguile viewers, works that can now be seen in a new exhibition in Zurich."
"In the honeymoon pictures, Groebli's camera traces Durmuller's movements as a shirt drops from her shoulders, the turn of her neck which, he explains, was a deliberate artistic approach not only to intensify the depiction of reality but to make visible the emotional involvement of my wife and of me. Durmuller is often nude, but not solely, and never explicitly posed."
"There is one graceful snap of Durmuller hanging up her laundry like a ballerina at a barre. By today's standards the shots are sweet. But in 1954, when they were first published in book form, they were scandalous, leading to critical letters being sent to photographic journals and damning editorials written in newspapers. 'It doesn't exhibit my wife as an object of desire' Undressing, 1952. Photograph: Rene Groebli/Courtesy of Bildhalle"
In 1952 Rene Groebli and his wife Rita Durmuller spent their honeymoon in a Montparnasse hotel photographing a series of sensual, intimate, and enigmatic images. Groebli's camera follows Durmuller's movements — a shirt slipping, the turn of her neck — aiming to intensify reality and reveal mutual emotional involvement. Durmuller appears often nude but never explicitly posed; playfulness and shared domestic space are central motifs. When the photographs were published in book form in 1954 they provoked scandal, critical letters, and damning editorials, partly because the book did not state the marital relationship. Groebli, now 98, remains untroubled by the period's reaction.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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