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(E)Motion
(E)Motion
René Groebli
December 18, 2025
Cornelia, studio photograph, Zurich 1961
© René Groebli, courtesy of Bildhalle
Movement traces the decades-long, ever-evolving career of René Groebli (b. 1927) – a photographer whose work is so multi-faceted that it cannot be understood through a few iconic images. Its spectrum ranges from dynamic street scenes filled with motion blur to experimental colour photography, from photomontages, inventive industrial and commissioned works, all the way to intimate black-and-white studies of life, love and physicality. If there is one constant within Groebli’s oeuvre, it is a clearly recognisable, unquenchable thirst for new forms of expression.
The exhibition at the Bildhalle Zurich allows viewers to experience Groebli’s photography as he has always lived it: as a dynamic, centrifugal force that captures movement in all its forms – physical, emotional, creative. It reveals an artist for whom photography was never merely a means of documenting the world, but a living medium that is forever moving – in every sense of the word.
Katrin UllmannThe exhibition at the Bildhalle Zurich allows viewers to experience Groebli’s photography as he has always lived it: as a dynamic, centrifugal force that captures movement in all its forms – physical, emotional, creative. It reveals an artist for whom photography was never merely a means of documenting the world, but a living medium that is forever moving – in every sense of the word.
ALL IMAGES ON THIS PAGE: © René Groebli
René Groebli+-
Born in Zürich on 9 October, 1927, he began his training photography with Theo Vornow in 1944, then continued his photographic studies at the Arts & Crafts College in Zürich, before beginning an apprenticeship as cameraman for documentary films in 1946.
As of 1949, he was a photo reporter for various Swiss and international magazines. His first non-commissioned series Magie der Schiene was produced in 1949 by his own Turnus Publishing. He left photo journalism at the beginning of the fifties and began to build up a very successful career as an industrial and commercial photographer, supported by his wife Rita (1923–2013). Groebli’s experiments with colour photography in both free, artistic works, as well as in applied areas, are sensational and enjoy international acclaim. He withdrew from commercial photography at the end of the seventies. More
Cornelia, studio photograph, Zurich 1961
© René Groebli, courtesy of Bildhalle
Ball game on Quai Bridge, Zurich 1950
© René Groebli, courtesy of Bildhalle
Undressing, from the series The Eye of Love, Paris 1952
© René Groebli, courtesy of Bildhalle
Hay tedder, Winterberg, Switzerland 1946
© René Groebli, courtesy of Bildhalle
Rail Magic (#394), 1949
© René Groebli, courtesy of Bildhalle