Lucien herve biography

 

‘Lucien Hervé’s serenely beautiful photography occurs at the very moment of the creation of an image, frozen yet fluid, into a new version of reality.’ – Zaha Hadid,

 

Lucien Hervé is widely recognised as the preeminent photographer of Modernist architecture. His pictures go beyond documenting these revolutionary buildings, to create a new visual language for expressing them. Hervé’s bold sense of composition and keen eye for detail have animated many of the 20 century’s most iconic buildings, as revealed through his astutely perceptive photography.

Since our first exhibition of Hervé’s work in we have continued to show his photography at the gallery. This will be the first time that this vintage series of the original Ronchamp maquettes, designed by Le Corbusier, will be shown to a public audience. 

Better known as Lucien Hervé, László Elkán was born in Hungary in , but his whole career developed in Paris, where since he became the official photographer of Le Corbusier. He started out working as fashion designer and later as journalist and photoreporter during the war. Captured by the Gestapo in , he managed to escape and joined the French resistance, adopting the name Lucien Hervé. In he went back to photography, focussing on architecture. Influenced by German expressionist cinema and the Bauhaus, his images are characterized by marked contrasts and abstraction. Hervé passed away in Paris in , at 97 years of age.

Lucien Hervé’s photographs were on view at the exhibition ‘Constructing Worlds. Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age’ at Madrid’s ICO Museum and are courtesy of Judith Hervé, photographer’s widow. [+]

If he collaborated with some of the other great architects of the twentieth century, the photographer Lucien Hervé () is above all famous for his work with Le Corbusier. A great constructor of the image, a single detail was all he needed to depict the ensemble, and he was capable of expressing the space simply by means of the contrast between light and shadow.
Lucien Hervé was also a committed observer of the world and of humanity however, seeking everywhere ‘the presence of the living’. His photographs taken from above or at an angle allowed him to play with the geometry of the image, and tended towards abstraction.
This exhibition at the Château de Tours pays tribute to him by juxtaposing, as he did, ‘the universal and the timeless’, the ancient and the modern, the abstract and the human.

A contemporary of some of the great Hungarian photographers—André Kertész and Brassaï—, as well as Robert Capa and Nicolás Muller —both of whom were recently exhibited at the Château de Tours— part of Lucien Hervé’s work remains unknown to the wider public. Despite his passion for architecture, this was never his sole subject or exclusive focus, Lucien Hervé also sought to represent in his work humanity and traces of humanity on the world, all the while avoiding the anecdotal.
For example, he photographed living and working conditions in places like France, India and South America. He captured children and old men who moved him, as well as the human gestures or movements that allowed him to play with the geometry of the image. His quest for beauty, whether
through architecture or humanity, often culminated in the abstraction of his subjects.

Curator: Imola Gebauer.

Exhibition organized by the Jeu de Paume, Paris in collaboration with the City of Tours.

JEU DE PAUME &#; CHÂTEAU DE TOURS
25 avenue André Malraux – Tours

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday: 2pm–6pm.

Hungarian photographer (–)

Lucien Hervé (born László Elkán: 7 August , – 26 June ) was a Hungarian photographer. He was notable for his architectural photography, beginning with his work for Le Corbusier.

Biography

• &#;: Born as László Elkán on 7 August in Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary, son of Nelly Ritscher and Lajos Elkán (a leather merchant and town councillor).
• &#;: The Elkán family moves to Budapest
• &#;: 3 March, his father dies. Beginning of his piano studies.
• &#;: In addition to his studies of music, sport plays an increasing role in his life. He goes in for Greco-Roman wrestling and swimming. He befriends working-class youths and turns away from the bourgeois lifestyle of his mother.
• &#;: Goes to Vienna, where he enrolls in the university to study economics. At the same time, he takes drawing courses at the Academy of Fine Arts and visits museums.
• &#;: In the summer, joins his brother in Paris and spends his time visiting museums. At the end of the year, returns to Budapest.
• &#;: In February, returns to Paris, where he lives with Lucienne Savin. Becomes a bank clerk. Abuses at the bank lead to his resignation in Having been placed on the "black list", he cannot find a job. He becomes active in the French-Hungarian trade union movement, studies economics and attends the workers' university.
• &#;: Works as designers' representative and then as a fashion designer for couture firms such as: Patou, Rochas, Lelong, Paquin, Worth, Schiaparelli, Molineaux, Lanvin, Chanel.
• &#;: Member of the French volleyball team that beats Germany in official competition. Joins the French Communist Party. Lives with Fernande Lacroix (a sales clerk with Patou).
• &#;: Organises strikes in the fashion industry and is consequently dismissed by the fashion design company Patou. Becomes a union representative in the Confédération générale du travail (CGT), France's national organized-labor gr