Inside Robert Redford’s Second Marriage to His Artistic Soulmate, Sibylle Szaggars

During the latter, poignant decades of his extraordinary life, Robert Redford had a quiet but enduring romance with another artist. Their relationship was characterized by a common goal, commitment, and inventiveness rather than the spotlight of Hollywood.

After more than ten years of friendship, Robert Redford and Sibylle Szaggars were married in 2009 in secret and silence. They had been together for almost thirty years. Only thirty of their closest friends and family members attended the wedding, which was tucked away in Hamburg, Germany, and was a far cry from red carpets.

Before deciding to get married, Redford, who was 71 at the time, and Szaggars, who was 51, had already lived together for 13 years. After a civil register marriage, they had a church wedding in the Louis C. Jacob Hotel’s Landscape Room. According to officiant Pastor Frank Engelbrecht of St. Catherine’s Church, “The wedding was very important to both of them.”

Due to Redford’s proficiency in German, Szaggars’ mother tongue was used for the vows. Redford showed there in a dapper white suit, and she walked down the aisle in a champagne-colored gown. A sumptuous yet modest multi-course supper was then served to the guests.

Selecting Love Without Fanfare
In addition to being romantic, their choice to get married in Hamburg was a conscious effort to avoid the publicity that frequently accompanies famous marriage. The pair was more concerned with meaning than with making headlines. Later that year, a second, more secret wedding was apparently scheduled for Mexico.

Their relationship began when they met in Sundance, the Utah artists’ retreat that Redford created, in the late 1990s. There, Szaggars had gone to ski. Despite knowing his name, she acknowledged that she didn’t know much about his work, which Redford found really refreshing.

“That’s one of the things that attracted me to her, she didn’t know much about me,” he said openly during the interview. “It began as two human beings meeting each other and finding a connection as two human beings, rather than being colored by success or whatever.”

An Invigorating Silence under the Shadow of Notoriety
Szaggars later said that she had tried at the last minute to learn about his work before they had supper together. She rented multiple of his movies, but she only viewed them for fifteen minutes apiece, glancing “randomly” over his body of work.

She laughed as she recalled, “Of course, he did not talk about his films, so I was rescued and saved in a certain way.” Redford’s admiration for her was unguarded.

He said, “She’s a very special person,” in 2011. “She’s younger than I am, and European, which I like, so that’s a whole new life.”

Their bond also satisfied Redford’s underlying urge to be recognized as an artist rather than merely an actor. He frequently gave Szaggars, a multimedia artist by profession, credit for identifying and sharing that crucial aspect of him.

The Artist Who Photographed the Landscapes of the World
Long before she became Mrs. Redford, Hamburg-born Szaggars had established a respected career in the global art world. She traveled across continents over her more than forty-year creative odyssey.

Her art was characterized by an apparent affinity for the environment, which was evident in everything from oil sketches and weather-influenced abstract watercolors to moving vacation photos and expansive stage pieces. Galleries across Europe, Monaco, Japan, Peru, Suriname, Singapore, and the US have displayed her art.

The esteemed Art in Embassies Program of the U.S. State Department officially acknowledged her influence in 2016. In the same year, eleven of her site-specific pieces were permanently exhibited at the U.S. Embassy in Paramaribo, after a visit to the beautiful jungles and Indigenous communities of Suriname.

“From the beginning of my [career] as an artist,” Szaggars previously stated, “nature was the force that inspired me to be an activist from within my art, warning of the impending dangers of extinction, but also pointing out through color and beauty how incredible this earth is.”

Promotion
Redford and Szaggars were very secretive, yet they occasionally appeared together at pivotal events. The images from these gatherings consistently depict Redford as embodying timeless style in traditional tuxedos and jackets, while Szaggars stands by his side in subtle elegance, favoring black, white, or striking bright colors.