René Groebli and Rita Dürmüller’s 1953 Honeymoon Photographs In Paris

In the spring of 1953, René Groebli and Rita Dürmüller arrived in Paris as newlyweds, carrying little more than a suitcase, a camera, and time. Their honeymoon coincided with a moment when the city was slowly easing itself out of the shadow of war. What they photographed during those days was not intended as a project, yet it has come to be regarded as one of the most intimate visual records of post war Paris, shaped as much by emotional closeness as by photographic intent.

A Honeymoon in a City Still Recovering

Paris in the early 1950s was neither fully restored nor frozen in wartime austerity. Bomb damage had largely been repaired, but rationing had only recently ended, and many neighbourhoods retained a subdued, reflective atmosphere. Cafés were busy again, yet there was a noticeable calm to street life. This was a city relearning its everyday rhythms.

Groebli and Dürmüller moved through Paris without urgency. They walked along the Seine, sat in cafés, lingered in hotel rooms, and observed ordinary moments that felt unremarkable at the time. The photographs from the trip reflect this pace. They show a Paris of pavements, curtains, reflections, and quiet interiors rather than monuments or spectacle.

René Groebli Before Paris

By the time of the honeymoon, René Groebli was already a significant figure in Swiss photography. Born in Zurich in 1927, he trained at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts, where he absorbed modernist ideas about form, movement, and subjectivity. He was influenced by the emerging language of post war photojournalism and by photographers such as Henri Cartier Bresson, but he was equally interested in abstraction and emotional perception.

Groebli believed that photography should convey how something felt, not simply how it looked. This approach was already visible in his earlier work, including experiments with motion blur and shallow focus. Paris provided a setting where these ideas could unfold naturally, without the pressure of assignment or publication.

Walking, Looking, Living Together

The honeymoon photographs are deeply shaped by the fact that they were made during shared time rather than professional work. Rita appears repeatedly in Groebli’s images, but rarely as a posed subject. She is walking ahead, reflected in a mirror, half seen through shadow or movement. These images feel provisional, like moments caught between thoughts.

Equally important is the sense that Groebli was photographing from within the experience, not observing from outside it. Many images are soft, grainy, or partially blurred. Rather than correcting these qualities, Groebli embraced them. He later described wanting his photographs to resemble memory, with its gaps, distortions, and emotional emphasis.

Rita Dürmüller Behind the Camera

For many years, Rita Dürmüller’s role in the Paris photographs was underplayed. More recent scholarship has rightly drawn attention to the fact that she photographed as well. Her images from the honeymoon show René in moments of rest and contemplation, offering a counterpoint to his more abstract style.

Rita’s photographs tend to be quieter and more direct. They suggest a mutual act of looking rather than a one sided gaze. This reciprocity is central to understanding the Paris work as a shared visual diary. Photography historian Ute Eskildsen later observed that the images function less as documentation and more as “a conversation carried out through photographs.”

A City Felt Rather Than Shown

Paris itself is present throughout the series, but rarely as a dominant subject. Famous landmarks appear only incidentally. Instead, the city is experienced through surfaces and fragments: wet streets, café tables, window light, hotel interiors. This approach aligns with Groebli’s belief that photography should prioritise lived experience over description.

The absence of spectacle gives the images their lasting strength. They resist nostalgia and avoid romanticising the city. Paris becomes a place inhabited rather than admired, shaped by mood and movement rather than geography.

Photography as Memory, Not Record

Many of the Paris photographs would later be connected to Das Auge der Liebe published in 1954. The book surprised audiences with its intimacy and abstraction, particularly in a period when photography was still expected to serve documentary or journalistic purposes. The Paris honeymoon images fit naturally within this work, blurring the boundary between public space and private feeling.

Groebli once remarked that a photograph should not explain itself completely, leaving room for the viewer’s own memories to surface. This philosophy is evident throughout the series. The images do not demand attention. They invite it.

A Quiet Place in Post War European Photography

The honeymoon photographs sit comfortably within a broader shift in European photography during the early 1950s, away from heroic narratives and towards personal vision. Photographers were increasingly interested in intimacy, subjectivity, and the everyday. Groebli and Dürmüller’s Paris images reflect this change without announcing it.

Viewed today, they remain notable for their restraint. They are neither dramatic nor sentimental. Instead, they offer a sustained attention to small moments, suggesting that photography can be a way of living attentively rather than recording events.

What makes these images endure is not their technical innovation or historical importance, but their honesty. They remind us that some of the most revealing photographs emerge not from ambition, but from paying close attention to the person beside you.

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