Jack Shear Black and White Photography

Lucien Clergue (FRENCH, 1934 - 2014) Gelatin silver photographic print depicting Pablo Picasso titled "Mougins". Jacqueline et Pablo Picasso écoutant Manitas de Plata, circa 1968. Hand signed by the artist with hand written description. Titled and dated lower left. Mounted in a silver painted wooden frame with mat behind acrylic screen. Paper measures approx. 9" height x 11 1/2" width to sight. Framed measures approx. 14 3/4" height x 17 1/4" width. Lucien Clergue (French: 1934 – 2014) was a French photographer. He was Chairman of the Academy of Fine Arts, Paris for 2013. Lucien Clergue was born in Arles, France. At the age of 7 he began learning to play the violin, and after several years of study his teacher admitted that he had nothing more to teach him. Clergue was from a family of shopkeepers and could not afford to pursue further studies in a college or university school of music, such as a conservatory. In 1949, he learned the basics of photography. Four years later, at a corrida in Arles, he showed his photographs to Spanish painter Pablo Picasso who, though subdued, asked to see more of his work. Within a year and a half, young Clergue worked on his photography with the goal of sending more images to Picasso. During this period, he worked on a series of photographs of travelling entertainers, acrobats and harlequins, the Saltimbanques. He also worked on a series whose subject was carrion. On 4 November 1955 Lucien Clergue visited Picasso in Cannes, France. Their friendship lasted nearly 30 years until Picasso's death. Clergue's autobiographical book, Picasso My Friend, looks back on important moments of their relationship. In 1968, and with his friend Michel Tournier, Clergue founded the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival which is held annually in July in Arles. He exhibited his work at the festival during the years 1971–1973, 1975, 1979, 1982–1986, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2000, 2003 and 2007. Clergue also illustrated books, among them a book by writer Yves Navarre. Clergue took many photographs of the gypsies of southern France, and was instrumental in propelling the guitarist Manitas de Plata to fame. Clergue is perhaps most remembered and respected for his vintage black-and-white studies of light, shadow, and form, featuring sinuous nude female bodies, zebra stripes of light, dynamic sand dunes, and seascapes extracted from the coast of the Camargue. Clergue's photographs are in the collections of numerous well-known museums and private collectors. His vintage photographs have been exhibited in over 100 solo exhibitions worldwide, with noted exhibitions such as in 1961, at the Museum of Modern Art New York, the last exhibition organized by Edward Steichen with Lucien Clergue, Bill Brandt and Yasuhiro Ishimoto. Museums with large collections of his work include The Fogg Museum at Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His work, Fontaines du Grand Palais (Fountains of the Grand Palais), is in Museo cantonale d'arte [de] of Lugano. His photographs of Jean Cocteau are on permanent display at the Jean Cocteau Museum in Menton, France. In the U.S., an exhibition of the Cocteau photographs was premiered at Westwood Gallery, New York City. In 2007, the city of Arles honored Lucien Clergue and dedicated a retrospective collection of 360 of his photographs dating from 1953 to 2007. He also received the 2007 Lucie Award. He was named Knight of the Légion d'honneur in 2003 and elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute of France on 31 May 2006, at the same time as a new section dedicated to photography was created. Clergue was the first photographer to enter the Academy to a position devoted specifically to photography. He was Chairman of the Academy of Fine Arts for 2013. Lucien Clergue was married to the art curator Yolande Clergue, founder of The Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. He was the father of two daughters: Anne Clergue, a curator of contemporary art who has worked at Leo Castelli Gallery, and Olivia Clergue, a handbag fashion designer whose godfather was Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso (1881 –1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramic artist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the slightly older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art. In 1897, his realism began to show a Symbolist influence, for example, in a series of landscape...

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph of Andy Warhol transvestite Superstar Jackie Curtis photographed in 1970, the year began filming "Women in Revolt". Signed by Jack Mitchell...

'Private Dancer' Brigitte Bardot 1961 by Giancarlo Botti Wonderfully intimate shot of the French sex symbol and icon, Brigitte Bardot, on set of the film 'A Very Private Affair' w...

'Ava Gardner Portrait' Limited Edition silver gelatin print ca 1950 Portrait of the actress Ava Gardner circa 1950. (photo by Pictorial Press / Alamy Archives) (photo by Pictorial...

Terry O’Neill CBE is one of the world’s most collected photographers, with work hanging in national art galleries and private collections worldwide. From presidents to pop stars, he ...

Elsa Peretti was born in Florence, studied interior design and was a language teacher and ski instructor before becoming a model. Peretti settled in New York in 1968 and began a care...

'Montgomery Clift' Oversize Limited Edition silver gelatin print A gorgeously insightful portrait of the first rebel of Hollywood and greatly respe...

Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, born in Parma and the son of poets, was himself a published poet at the age of eighteen. He moved into films at twenty as an assistant director to Pier Paolo Pasolini, himself a poet turned filmmaker. When Jack Robinson photographed the twenty-eight year old Bertolucci on April 12, 1969, he had not yet started filming on The Conformist (1970) featuring the actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Dominique Sanda. In Vogue, Bertolucci is described as “a shy man who moves the way he speaks and smiles, gently but cautiously, with sleepy brown eyes on the lookout for the worst”. As a filmmaker, he would achieve notoriety for Last Tango in Paris...

'Sophia Loren' Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Print Italian sex symbol and actress, Sophia Loren, 1966 / Everett Collection. Large silver gelatin fibre print - limited gallery e...

Dirk Bogarde had, by the time Jack Robinson photographed him on January 17, 1968, survived a long period as the pin-up idol of postwar British cinema to b...

'Jarvis Cocker Of Pulp In London' (silver gelatin print Limited Edition) Originally shot for Mojo Magazine under Watyerloo Bridge in London, 2001. A b...

Berry Berenson and her sister Marisa, are shown in a “Vogue’s Own Boutique” session published April 1, 1970. “Berry, Marisa, and Squashy the dog find Th...