Jacques-André Boiffard

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Jacques-André Boiffard (born July 29, 1902 in Épernon , Département Eure-et-Loir , France , † 1961 in Paris ) was a French doctor and photographer .

Life

Jacques-André Boiffard :
Le gros orteil (The big toe)
Gelatin silver print, printed 1929
Renée Jacobi
Gelatin silver print, printed 1930
(External links, please note copyrights )

While studying medicine , his childhood friend, the surrealist author Pierre Naville , introduced him to André Breton . Boiffard then joined the Surrealists and wrote, together with Paul Éluard and Roger Vitrac , the foreword to the first edition of La Révolution surréaliste . However, he preferred photography to writing and became an assistant to Man Ray . With Man Ray he made the surrealist films L'étoile de mer (1928) and Les Mystères du Château de Dé (1929).

In the 1920s, Boiffard took portraits of the English writer Nancy Cunard , photographed views of Paris with Man Ray on behalf of the Peignot company and illustrated Breton's novel Nadja . In 1928 Boiffard was surprisingly expelled from the Surrealists for taking photographs of Simone Breton.

From 1929 he worked with Georges Bataille on the journal Documents , in which his most famous works were published: He illustrated the text Le gros orteil (The Big Toe) by Bataille (issue 6, 1929), Pygmalion and the Sphinx by Robert Desnos (issue 1, 1930) and Eschyle et le carnaval des civilisés by Georges Limbour (edition 2, 1930). He attacked André Breton with a contribution to the pamphlet Un Cadavre .

From 1929 to 1932 he ran a photo studio together with Eli Lotar . Together with Lotar he wanted to go around the world, but the financial means only reached as far as Tangier . During the political unrest of the 1930s, Boiffard was a member of the left-wing political theater group Octobre, led by the Prévert brothers (Pierre and Jacques Prévert ) . From 1932 Boiffard published his work in the context of the Communism sympathetic Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires .

After his father's death in 1935, Boiffard resumed his medical studies and graduated in 1940 in the field of radiology . He did not continue his career as a photographer.

literature

  • Atelier Man Ray - Berenice Abbott, Jacques- Andre Boiffard, Bill Brandt, Lee Miller. 1920-1935 . Exhibition catalog of the Center Georges Pompidou , Paris 1982, without ISBN.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Boiffard, Jacques-André
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French doctor and photographer
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Epernon
DATE OF DEATH 1961
Place of death Paris