René Burri in 2004, in front of his most famous photograph of the revolationary Che Guevara, which he took in Havana in 1961. Photograph: Sandro Campardo/AP
Magnum photographer René Burri dies
Magnum photographer René Burri dies
Swiss photographer best known for iconic portraits of Che Guevara and Picasso dies aged 81 after a long illness
Monday 20 October 2014
The Swiss photographer René Burri, celebrated for his portraits of Che Guevara and Pablo Picasso, died on Monday in Zurich aged 81, the Magnum Photo agency said.
Burri, who lived between Zurich and Paris, had been suffering from a long illness, Magnum said.
Martin Parr, president of Magnum Photos, said: “Not only was he one of the great postwar photographers, he was also one of the most generous people I have had the privilege to meet.”
Burri started working for Magnum in 1956 and covered major political events around the world.
Among his most famous works were an iconic portrait of the revolutionary Che Guevara smoking a cigar, as well as portraits of Fidel Castro and hundreds of pictures of the architect Le Corbusier, and the artists Alberto Giacometti, Yves Klein and Picasso.
He later said that Guevara was “an arrogant man, but he had charm ... He was like a tiger in a cage.”
Of photographing celebrities, Burri said: “You must not come at it like a bulldozer.”
His friends said he took four years to organise a meeting with Picasso.
After studying at the Arts and Crafts school of Zurich, Burri worked as an assistant cameraman for Walt Disney films in Switzerland before joining Magnum.
His first picture, which he took in 1946 when he was 13, was a shot of Winston Churchill driving through Zurich in an open-topped car.
He left his archives of some 30,000 pictures to the Musée de l’Élysee in Lausanne.
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