Jean Louis Marie Eugène Durieu (10 December 1800 – 16 May 1874) was an early French amateur
nude photographer, primarily known for his early nude photographs of men and women.
A number of his male and female models were also painted by
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
, with whom he was friends.
Biography
Durieu was born in
Nîmes, and became known for making studies of nudes for Delacroix.
During his career Durieu was a lawyer. His last job was inspector for education and culture.
In 1849 he went into early retirement and devoted himself to the newly developing technology of photography. In 1853, Durieu worked with Delacroix on a series of photographs of different male and female nude models.
On 15 November 1854,
Henri Victor Regnault
Henri Victor Regnault (21 July 1810 – 19 January 1878) was a French chemist and physicist best known for his careful measurements of the thermal properties of gases. He was an early thermodynamicist and was mentor to William Thomson in ...
founded the French
Société française de photographie
The Société française de photographie (SFP) is an association, founded on 15 November 1854, devoted to the history of photography. It has a large collection of photographs and old cameras.
Among the founding members were Olympe Aguado, Hippoly ...
(SFP), one of the earliest photographic societies in the world, and was its president. Regnault wanted to see notable individuals with strong scientific expertise in fields such as chemistry, physics, optics, photographic techniques in positions of the association, on the basis that the scientific component is an important aspect of photography.
Between 1854 and 1855, Durieu played a key role in the organisation of the association; and other notables involved included
Olympe Aguado
Count Olympe-Clemente-Alexandre-Auguste Aguado de las Marismas (3 February 1827 – 25 October 1894) was a Franco-Spanish photographer and socialite, active primarily in the 1850s and 1860s. One of several early photographers who learned the prac ...
,
Hippolyte Bayard
Hippolyte Bayard (20 January 1801 – 14 May 1887) was a French photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. He invented his own process that produced direct positive paper prints in the camera and presented the world's first public e ...
,
Alexandre Edmond Becquerel
Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (24 March 1820 – 11 May 1891), known as Edmond Becquerel, was a French physicist who studied the solar spectrum, magnetism, electricity and optics. He is credited with the discovery of the photovoltaic effect, the op ...
, ,
Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros
Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gros (1793–1870), also known as Baron Gros, was a French diplomat and later senator, as well as a notable pioneer of photography.
Life and career
He entered the French diplomatic service in 1823 and was given the title of ...
, and
Gustave Le Gray
Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray (; 30 August 1820 – 30 July 1884)Le Corre, Florence "Translated from the catalogue ''Une visite au camp de Châlons sous le Second Empire: photographies de Messieurs Le Gray, Prévot...'', Paris: musée de l'Armée, ...
.
Durieu resigned in 1856, after a case of forged documents.
Durieu died in Paris in 1874.
Gallery
Durieu presented his whole set of photographs,
calotypes
Calotype or talbotype is an early photographic process introduced in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide. Paper texture effects in calotype photography limit the ability of this early process to record low ...
and
daguerreotypes
Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process.
Invented by Louis Daguerre an ...
made between 1853 and 1856, of male and female nude models to the ''Société française de photographie'' in 1857, describing them as "portraits and studies from nature".
Image:Durieu 1.jpg
Image:Durieu 2.jpg
Image:Durieu 3.jpg
Image:Durieu 4.jpg
Image:Durieu 5.jpg
Image:Durieu 6.jpg
Image:Nude female by Eugène Durieu.jpg
Image:Durieu, Jean Louis Marie Eugène (1800-1874) - Nu masculin assis - ca. 1855 - Puig p. 3.jpg
Collections and exhibitions
Durieu's works are found or have been exhibited in a number of galleries, including:
*
Getty Center - 2007-2008 Exhibition
*
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York
*
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
*
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, the San Francisco
*
National Gallery of Art, Washington
References
Coke, Van Deren. "Two Delacroix Drawings Made from Photographs". ''Art Journal'', Vol. 21, No. 3. (Spring, 1962), pp. 172–174.
*
External links
*
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863): Paintings, Drawings, and Prints from North American Collections a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Jean Louis Marie Eugène Durieu
{{DEFAULTSORT:Durieu, Jean Louis Marie Eugene
1800 births
1874 deaths
People from Nîmes
19th-century French photographers