Marcel Bovis (1904–1997) was a
French photographer, most notable for his photographs of
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
.
Bovis studied at the
National School of Decorative Arts in
Nice
Nice ( , ; Niçard dialect, Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agg ...
and subsequently arrived to Paris to work as decorator. He taught himself photography and from 1927 started to produce photos of Paris, predominantly at night, and after 1936 became a professional photographer. In the same year, he had his first personal exhibition in Paris. This particular exhibition, which was held in
Pavillon de Marsan
The Pavillon de Marsan or Marsan Pavilion was built in the 1660s as the northern end of the Tuileries Palace in Paris, and reconstructed in the 1870s after the Tuileries burned down at the end of the Paris Commune. Following the completion of th ...
, was a collection of photos he took together with
Pierre Mac Orlan
Pierre Mac Orlan, sometimes written MacOrlan (born Pierre Dumarchey, February 26, 1882 – June 27, 1970), was a French novelist and songwriter.
His novel '' Quai des Brumes'' was the source for Marcel Carné's 1938 film of the same name, starring ...
. It records the celebrations of festivals and famous circuses with a
humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "human ...
sympathy.
In 1941 he joined the professional association
Le Rectangle and after it disbanded in 1946 he became one of the founding members of the
Le Groupe des XV ''Le Groupe des XV'' was a collective founded in 1946 by fifteen (hence its name) French humanist photographers who exhibited annually in Paris until 1957. Its objective was to have photography recognised as an art form in its own right, and to use ...
, an association of French photographers, and in 1952, he exhibited at the World Exhibition of Photography in
Lucerne.
Literary work
In 1941, Bovis co-authored a travel book about Paris with Mac Orlan.
In 1991, Bovis donated over 20,000 of his photographs to the French Government. In 1992, a large retrospective of his works of was shown in the
Palais de Tokyo
The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...
in Paris.
Books
* ''La Photographie de paysage et d'architecture'', Éditions Prisma, Paris, 1948
* ''Du Quartier latin au Jardin des Plantes'', Éditions Arts et métiers graphiques, Paris, 1948
* ''Initiation à la photographie…'', Le Livre de poche, Paris, 1973
* ''Initiation à la photographie'', Éd. universitaire, Paris, 1975
* with
Bernard Lefebvre and Maurice Barette, ''Synopsis: Histoire de la photographie'', Recherche et documentation photographiques, Rouen, 1980
* ''Bovis 6x6'', Michaël Houlette & Mathieu Rivallin, foreword Antonin Pons Braley. Berlin : Tumuult, 2015. ()
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bovis, Marcel
French photographers
1904 births
1997 deaths
Architectural photographers
Humanist photographers