| Names: | Born: Robert Lčon Demachy
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| | Dates: | 1859, 7 July - 1936, 29 December | | Born: | France, Saint-Germain-en-Laye | | Died: | France, Hennequeville | | Active: | France | | Gender: | Male |
French artist, writer and photographer who was a founder member of the Photo-Club de Paris and one of the great users of the gum bichromate and oil processes. As one of the leading French pictorialists he contributed works to Camera Work. He was also a member of the Linked Ring Brotherhood.Preparing biographies
Biography provided by Focal Press
The leading French pictorialist, member of the Linked Ring, exhibitor at Stieglitz’ 291 gallery who championed the manipulated image with an outpouring of prints, lectures, and articles. Demachy’s diverse subject matter often reverberated with the impressionistic style and always revealed the hand of their maker. Technically brilliant, especially in gum bichromate printing, Demachy was disdainful of the clarity of detail and the automatic trace of reality of the "straight," unmanipulated print and defended the painterly image arguing:
"A work of art must be a transcription, not a copy of nature … there is not a particle of art in the most beautiful scene of nature. The art is man’s alone, it is subjective not objective."
(Author: Robert Hirsch - Independent scholar and writer)
Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409]
(Used with permission)
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
1990, Robert Demachy: Pictorialist, (Paris: Bookking International) [Δ]
Jay, B., 1974, Robert Demachy, 1859–1936, (New York: St. Martin’s Press) [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com | | Portraits
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Family history
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 | Robert Demachy: Behind the scenes - Dancers |
|  | Robert Demachy: Coin de rue, ŕ Menton |
|  | Robert Demachy: Portrait of a child |
|  | Robert Demachy: Rouen |
|  | Robert Demachy: Struggle |
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All photographs by this photographer
Robert Demachy
French, 1859-1936
Robert Demachy was born into a wealthy Parisian family which in turn allowed him to pursue his love of art and music, without having to worry about how to support himself. He was influenced by the Impressionist painters and spent most of his time making photographs and developing his theories on photography, both technical and aesthetic. He wrote thousands of articles and several books on photography and was a strong proponent of techniques used to manipulate a photograph such as the gum bichromate process, oil transfers and scratching of the gelatine. He founded the Photo-Club de Paris with fellow photographer C. Puyo and was a prominent force in French pictorial photography. In 1905 he became a member of The Linked Ring and was an honorary member of the Royal Photographic Society. His photographs were also reproduced Stieglitz's Camera Work. He exhibited his work and lectured internationally before giving up photography in 1914 in order to pursue drawing. His work can be found in such collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
[Contributed by Lee Gallery]
| Getty Research, Los Angeles, USA has an ULAN (Union List of Artists Names Online) entry for this photographer. This is useful for checking names and they frequently provide a brief biography. | | Go to website | Grove Art Online (www.groveart.com) has a biography of this artist.
[NOTE: This is a subscription service and you will need to pay an annual fee to access the content.] | Show on this site | Go to website | | The Cleveland Museum of Art, USA has a biography on this photographer. [Scroll down the page on this website as the biography may not be immediately visible.] | Show on this site | Go to website |
The following books are useful starting points to obtain brief biographies but they are not substitutes for the monographs on individual photographers. |
• Auer, Michele & Michel 1985 Encyclopedie Internationale Des Photographes de 1839 a Nos Jours / Photographers Encylopaedia International 1839 to the present (Hermance, Editions Camera Obscura) 2 volumes [A classic reference work for biographical information on photographers.]
• Beaton, Cecil & Buckland, Gail 1975 The Magic Eye: The Genius of Photography from 1839 to the Present Day (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown & Company) p.92 [Useful short biographies with personal asides and one or more example images.]
• Capa, Cornell (ed.) 1984 The International Center of Photography: Encyclopedia of Photography (New York, Crown Publishers, Inc. - A Pound Press Book) p.138-139
• Lenman, Robin (ed.) 2005 The Oxford Companion to the Photograph (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [Includes a short biography on Robert Demachy.]
• Witkin, Lee D. and Barbara London 1979 The Photograph Collector’s Guide (London: Secker and Warburg) p.123 [Long out of print but an essential reference work - the good news is that a new edition is in preparation.]
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If there is an analysis of a single photograph or a useful self portrait I will highlight it here. |
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