Lucien Clergue in 10 dates

12 November 2015
Before coming to the exhibition "Lucien Clergue. First albums" at the Grand Palais from 14 November 2015 to 15 February 2016, learn more about the photographer...

Francis Selier, A l’homme du sable et du langage de la lumière, Angoulême, 11 avril 2014 © Francis Selier

Lucien Clergue in 10 dates

 

1934 -Born on 14 August in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, to parents who were shopkeepers. Starts to learn the violin at the age of seven.

 

1953 - Meets Picasso in Arles. Travels to Spain. His first photographs were published in Le Provençal, a daily newspaper.

 

1956 – Meets Jean Cocteau. First nudes on the beaches of Camargue.

 

1968 – Directs the film Picasso, War, Love and Peace for the series Museum Without Walls, produced by Universal Pictures. His film Delta de Sel (1967) is shown at the Cannes Film Festival and is nominated for an Oscar.



1969 – Picasso invites him to film his sculpture studio. He stays with him in Mougins for several days. Becomes Art Director at the Arles Festival where he co-founds the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie with Jean-Maurice Rouquette and Michel Tournier.

 

1979 – Presents his doctorate in photography, Langage des Sables, at the University of Provence, Marseille. The doctorate, exclusively made up of pictures, with no text or words, is presented to a jury in which Roland Barthes sits.

 

1992 – His work is included in the French National Fund for Contemporary Art collections (FNAC), Paris.

 

2006 – First photographer to be elected a member of the Institut de France's Académie des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Opens the eighth section devoted to photography.

 

2013 – Appointed President of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

 

2014 – Dies on 15 November in Nîmes.

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