A great photographic series by René Groebli

The white dress that the woman is pulling over her head looks as soft and blurry as a cloud. The motion blur captures the intimate moment of undressing so inimitable that it completely forgets the photographer.

It is not the voyeuristic, but rather the loving gaze of the Swiss photographer René Groebli that makes the 1952 series “The Eye of Love” exhibited by Johanna Breede a stroke of luck in the history of photography.

“The Eye of Love” sees the world in a different light. In this case, the world is the sparsely furnished hotel room in Paris that the 25-year-old photographer lived in with his wife Rita during his honeymoon.

Born in Zurich in 1927, the trained documentary cameraman initially worked as a photo reporter before running a photo studio for industrial and advertising photography in order to realize his artistic photo essays at the same time.

Rita in the rumpled bed

“The Eye of Love” falls on the rumpled bed, gets stuck on the lace curtains with the Cupid cherubs, looks for a moment at the window opposite and can’t take his eyes off the beloved woman, whose silhouette is silhouetted against the light.

It lovingly follows the line of her neck, runs along her legs with the silk stockings, watches her reflection in the mirror as she brushes her eyelashes and can’t get enough of her appearance.

Like a photo novel in the style of the Serie Noir, the black and white images combine to form a cinematic sequence of the moment that is as fleeting and ephemeral as it is real. Only a few snapshots tell of the before and after, such as the climb up the staircase or the still life with a red wine bottle, rose and ashtray with the proverbial cigarette afterwards.

With economical furnishings such as the shimmering negligee on a coat hanger and the timeless white blouse, the fine line between cliché and universal experience is achieved.

Purchase for the MoMA

What was considered frivolous and offensive in Switzerland at the time was immediately recognized in the USA. None other than Edward Steichen, then director of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was impressed by the series, which was published as a small edition book in 1954.

Together with Robert Frank, he also visited Groebli’s hometown of Zurich to locate works for the large exhibition project “The Family of Man”. He then invited Robert Frank’s compatriot and peer to the legendary exhibition, which went on a world tour as a comprehensive portrait of humanity and is now part of the world’s documentary heritage. He also acquired the Seated Back Nude for the MoMA collection.

The landscape format of the reclining nude in Groebli’s series is just as important as the portrait format. In the classic pose of Velázquez’s Venus in the most beautiful drapery, the “eye of love” sweeps along the curved side line to the hip, which is discreetly covered by a draped sheet.

It radiates the same calm and devotion as the motif on the book cover, which shows the beloved woman dressed in existentialist black and lying on her stomach in extreme foreshortening. Taken up close and at eye level, it is one of the most intimate images in this series, from which Johanna Breede presents both vintage prints and high-quality platinum palladium prints.

It is poetic impressions that make the series a single declaration of love, a photographic love poem that celebrates the mystery of love in the lover’s view of his beloved.