Edward Quinn

*February 20, 1920, Dublin, Ireland | †January 30, 1997, Altendorf, Switzerland

Edward Quinn, who grew up in Ireland, practiced in various professions after school. Neither the partial monotonous work as a metal worker, nor the creative musician seemed to please him. He worked as a radionavigator for airlines before he discovered his heart for photography in the 1950s.

In the Irish Independent, he published his first photo in 1950 showing an Irish horse winning a horse race in Nice. For the next few years, the French Riviera remained a food point and its favorite motif. Here celebrities and the high society frolicked. With his charming, friendly manner he gained confidence in the often unapproachable personalities. His recordings portray a glamorous and cheerful society, which after the years of the war is free and undisputed. Often it is the quite informal moments, which Quinn skillfully sets in scene and thus not necessarily the star, but the man offsets.

Quinn was never the paparazzi photographer, but rather interested in the artistic talent he felt connected to. In 1951 he met Pablo Picasso, to whom he used a long and close friendship. Many of the most important portraits of Picasso come from Edward Quinn's hand. He published a total of four books and filmed three films about his longtime friend Picasso.

At the beginning of the 1990s Quinn left the French Riviera to move to Switzerland to the family of his wife Gret Sulser, who was born in Zurich (married 1952). A few years later, he died at the age of 77.