Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
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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>
Inauguration Chapel NotreDame du Haut France 1955
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
architecture
chapel
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
clothing and personal items
countries and continents
documentary
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
France, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
group
groups
history
Le Corbusier
modernist
named individuals
objects
people
periods and styles
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religious
Ronchamp, Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut
society: Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut, inauguration, 1955
sunshine
umbrella
weather
<p><span>Inauguration of the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut, France, 1955 </span>1955, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. It shows figures in the crowd at the inauguration of a religious building. The bottom left-hand corner shows members of a scouts’ group while the figures close to the camera at the centre and right-hand of the image are women, one of whom holds a large black umbrella. The umbrella’s curve reflects the boat-shaped roof-structure of the building, under which a man can be seen at a lectern, with what looks like a choir behind him. The Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France, was designed by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier towards the end of his career.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
Inauguration of the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut, France, 1955
image: 346 × 524 mm
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Inauguration of the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut, France, 1955 </i>1955, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. It shows figures in the crowd at the inauguration of a religious building. The bottom left-hand corner shows members of a scouts’ group while the figures close to the camera at the centre and right-hand of the image are women, one of whom holds a large black umbrella. The umbrella’s curve reflects the boat-shaped roof-structure of the building, under which a man can be seen at a lectern, with what looks like a choir behind him. The Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France, was designed by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier towards the end of his career.  </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<br/>Arthur Goodwin<br/>October 2018</p>
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Summary
2019-01-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
architecture chapel cities, towns, villages (non-UK) clothing and personal items countries and continents documentary emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities France, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté group groups history Le Corbusier modernist named individuals objects people periods and styles photographic places politics and society religious Ronchamp, Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut society: Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut, inauguration, 1955 sunshine umbrella weather