No other photographer documented the societal and cultural life on the Cote d’Azur of the Golden Fifties so thoroughly and with such a fine sense of irony as the Irishman Edward Quinn (1920-1997). For over a decade Quinn ventured discreetly and tenaciously in the society jungle of the French Riviera, and lifted unrivaled treasures from this ignis fatuus epicenter of highlife, big business, art, music, and literature.
 
In Quinn’s time protagonists on the French Riviera are film stars and artists, jazz musicians, chansonniers, the aristocracy, shipping magnates, film directors, politicians, pin-up girls, and the literati. Edward Quinn moves about freely with artfulness and charm in this glitz-and-glamour world and his view of it is unmistakable. Quinn does not compromise his subjects and time and again allows the observer to anticipate the private side: a young, unknown Brigitte Bardot, Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier at their first meeting, Audrey Hepburn at the beginning of her career. In a incomparable measure Pablo Picasso allowed no other photographer the same access to his private life as to his long-time friend Edward Quinn.