ANDRÉ GOBELI EXHIBITION
August 1966 – The Rescue at Les Drus
Behind the Lens: André Gobeli
On August 16, 1966, while covering a bicycle race in Sallanches for the ORTF, journalist and photographer André Gobeli received an unexpected call. Off to Les Drus he went.
A television crew is flown by helicopter as close as possible to the cliff face. André, meanwhile, heads to base camp to report on the arrival of the rescuers and survivors.
The footage will be used in the evening news. But André also keeps a few candid photographs for himself.
Today, these photographs have become rare records of a moment that left its mark on the history of mountaineering.
A man who told stories of his time
Born in Geneva in 1921 and living in Annecy since the late 1940s, André Gobeli was not just a photographer.
He was the one who was always there whenever something happened.
Weddings, family portraits, official ceremonies, local festivals, sporting events, and high-profile presidential visits: for more than sixty years, his camera has captured both the daily lives of Annecy’s residents and the defining moments of history.
As a journalist for *Le Dauphiné Libéré*, a cameraman for ORTF, and the official photographer for the City of Annecy, he crossed paths over the decades with Vincent Auriol, Pierre Mendès France, Johnny Hallyday, Françoise Hardy, Hugues Aufray… as well as leading figures in the mountaineering world such as René Desmaison, Maurice Herzog, Guy Périllat, and Sylvain Saudan.
He has also been involved with the Annecy International Animation Film Festival since its inception, leaving behind several thousand photographs that chronicle the festival’s evolution.
His gaze had a special gift: the ability to transform current events into memories.
And among all the images he left us, those of the rescue at Les Drus serve as a reminder that a single click of the shutter can sometimes capture a piece of history.
