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1908 (Chanteloup) He was interested exclusively in painting in the 1920s, he learnt from French masters, later he studied painting and literature in Cambridge. He started to photograph in 1931, he insisted on his Leica bought this time. In 1934-35 he was the photographer of an ethnographical expedition in Mexico. In 1935 he moved to New York and worked there as a freelance photographer, he studied the technique of filming with Paul Strand.
In 1936-1939 he worked as Jean Renoir's assistance took part in the shooting of La Vie est a Nous a La Régle du Jeu. In 1937 he made a documentary film with Herbert Klein on the hospitals of the republican army in Spain. In 1939 he was the photographer of the correspondence division of the army. Between 1940-43 he was a prisoner of war in the Vosges but he escaped.
In 1943 photographed painters and he returned to fine art: he created gouache pictures. In 1944-1945 he documented the liberation of France and Paris. After the war he worked as a freelance photographer. He was one of the founders of Magnum agency. He received the Award of the Overseas Press Club of America several times (1948, 1954, 1960, and 1964).
From 1950s he went on photographic tours in India, Burma, Pakistan, Indonesia (1948-50), the Soviet Union (1954), China (1959), Cuba, Mexico, Canada (1960).
In the 1960s he made several documentary films for British and German televisions. From 1974 he paid more attention to painting and drawing than photography.
His first solo exhibition was arranged in 1932 in the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, from that time on the most significant museums and galleries exhibited his photographs. |
