Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
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Collection
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rene-burri-22358" aria-label="More by René Burri" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">René Burri</a>
Valais Canton Switzerland 1956
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
adults
aircraft
aircraft - non-specific
airport
architecture
boy
children
countries and continents
documentary
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
group
groups
leisure and pastimes
man
man-made landmarks (non-UK)
objects
people
photographic
places
playing
public and municipal
recreational activities
Sion Airfield
society
Switzerland, Valais
toys and models
transport: air
<p><span>Valais Canton, Switzerland, 1956 </span>1956, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. It shows a man walking next to a small, stationary aircraft while in the foreground, one standing and two sitting boys play with toy aeroplanes on the runway tarmac. The runway pictured is Sion Airfield, Valais Canton, Switzerland, from where the mountain pilot Hermann Geiger took off when undertaking rescue missions in the Alps. The irregularities in tone over the surface of the image could be down to exposure or deterioration of the film, or intentional treatment during the developing process.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
Valais Canton, Switzerland, 1956
image: 348 × 524 mm
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Valais Canton, Switzerland, 1956 </i>1956, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. It shows a man walking next to a small, stationary aircraft while in the foreground, one standing and two sitting boys play with toy aeroplanes on the runway tarmac. The runway pictured is Sion Airfield, Valais Canton, Switzerland, from where the mountain pilot Hermann Geiger took off when undertaking rescue missions in the Alps. The irregularities in tone over the surface of the image could be down to exposure or deterioration of the film, or intentional treatment during the developing process. </p>
<p>This image is part of a portfolio of twenty-seven prints (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-inauguration-of-the-chapel-of-notre-dame-du-haut-france-1955-p14301" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14301</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-poster-of-che-guevara-1993-p14327" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14327</span></a>), selected and compiled by Burri as a cohesive group shortly before his death in 2014. The selection spans his sixty-year career and includes a number of his best known black and white works, as well as a group of lesser-known colour works. The portfolio was printed by Burri in 2014 and this copy is number three in an edition of five plus one artist’s proof. It contains fourteen black and white gelatin silver prints and thirteen colour C-prints, highlighting Burri’s diverse use of light and shadow alongside his experimental use of colour. Although predominantly known for shooting in black and white, Burri often travelled with two cameras, switching between them to capture images in both colour and greyscale. This was a progressive approach at the time, when colour photography was generally only used in advertising or for commercial practices. Burri revisited his archive of colour images later in his career and published the monograph <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i> in 2013 as a decisive examination of this work.</p>
<p>Burri is most famous for his work as a member of the photojournalism agency Magnum Photos and the portfolio includes images produced in this context from projects in Brazil, Egypt, Lebanon, East Germany, China and South Korea, as well as an iconic image of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara taken in Havana in 1963. The young Burri was introduced to Magnum by fellow Swiss photographer Werner Bischof and began working with the agency first as an associate in 1955, before becoming a full member in 1959. His extensive career encompassed a wide variety of photographic practices, including documentary, reportage, street photography and the photo-essay, as well as portraiture, architecture and landscape photography. He often worked on press assignments and personal projects simultaneously, building a varied portfolio of work in both black and white and colour. Burri’s use of both bird’s eye and worm’s eye views and his attention to the effects of light and shadow created by architectural forms are reminiscent of techniques used by modernist photographers in the early twentieth century.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri Photographs</i>, London 2003.<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i>, London 2013.</p>
<p>Shoair Mavlian<br/>January 2015</p>
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Summary
2019-01-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
adults aircraft aircraft - non-specific airport architecture boy children countries and continents documentary emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities group groups leisure and pastimes man man-made landmarks (non-UK) objects people photographic places playing public and municipal recreational activities Sion Airfield society Switzerland, Valais toys and models transport: air