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 people, French Romanticism, Romantic artist who was regarded as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: ...
, with whom he was friends.
Biography
Durieu was born in
Nîmes
Nîmes ( , ; ; Latin: ''Nemausus'') is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Gard Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region of Southern France. Located between the Med ...
, 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,
Hippolyte Bayard,
Alexandre Edmond Becquerel
Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (; 24 March 1820 – 11 May 1891) was a French physicist who studied the solar spectrum, magnetism
Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attrac ...
, ,
Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros, and
Gustave Le Gray.
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 and
daguerreotypes 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, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, New York
*
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
, 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 (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
, the San Francisco
*
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
, 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