Laure Albin-Guillot French 1879-1962
Male Nude, c.1930

£3,500

Fresson print
Inscribed ‘LAG 17033’ (verso)
29cm × 23cm (image size), 37cm × 30.5cm (sheet size), (48cm × 41cm framed)

Albin-Guillot studied drawing and painting before becoming interested in photography. In 1925, she went on to have the first one-person exhibition at the Paris Autumn Salon. She also served as president of the French Societe des Artistes Photographes and in June 1928, was included in the first independent Salon of Photography in Paris.

Published in 1932, she took a series of male nudes taken for Henry de Motherlant’s La Deesse Cypris. The strongly cropped images in which the male nudes fill the entire frame accompany the author’s text about sensuality. In 1933, she collaborated with the poet Paul Valery on Le Narcisse, again depicting erotic subject matter. Albin-Guillot remained passionate about photography throughout her life and strove to have the art form formally recognized in her lifetime.