Bernard Faucon
Bernard Faucon (born 12 September 1950) is a French photographer and writer. He first established a career in art photography and has exhibited widely around the world. Some of his work has attracted accusations of promoting pedophilia, which he rejected as "a loss of open-mindedness" ("la perte de l'esprit libre") in a 2005 interview.
Bernard Faucon

vpagnouf · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Born
- 1950 · Apt.
- Nationality
- France
- Occupation
- photographer · writer · artist
- Education
- University of Paris
- Languages
- French
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Bernard Faucon (born 12 September 1950) is a French photographer and writer. He first established a career in art photography and has exhibited widely around the world. Some of his work has attracted accusations of promoting pedophilia, which he rejected as "a loss of open-mindedness" ("la perte de l'esprit libre") in a 2005 interview.
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wikidata · Q2897884 · wikipedia · Bernard Faucon
In this article
Biography
Biography
In 2024, the French daily Le Monde published accusations from three men who alleged having suffered "sexual violence" at his hands as adolescent muses for his photography.
Bernard Faucon studied at University of Paris. The recorded working language is French. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris. Work by Bernard Faucon is recorded in the collections of Photography Collection, CODA Museum, National Museum of Fine Arts, Argentina, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Faucon was born in Apt, in Provence, southern France. He attended the lycée in Apt, then studied at the Sorbonne, graduating in Philosophy in 1973. Until 1977 he worked as a fine art painter, and thereafter discovered photography. His photographic work expresses a love of youth and dreamy beauty, using saturated colour, natural settings, rooms, and often tableaux of mannequins. His major photographic series are, in date-order: Les Grandes Vacances (1977–1981); Evolution probable du Temps (1981–1984); Les Chambres d'amour (1987–1989); Les Idoles et les Sacrifices (1989–1991); Les écritures (1991–1993); and La Fin de L'image (1993–1995). Faucon has won numerous awards from his work, including the Grand Prix National (1989) and the Prix Leonard de Vinci (1991). Since 1977 he has had nearly 300 solo exhibitions, many held outside France. He developed a popular following in Japan in particular. In 1997 Faucon decided to cease his photography practice. In 1999 he published his first book of writing, La peur du voyage (The Fear of Travel). He is represented by the French agency Agence Vu. The mannequins which he had frequently used in his photographs were acquired by the Nanasai Company and are held in its corporate art collection in Kyoto, Japan. In 2002, the Moscow House of Photography in Russia held a Bernard Faucon Festival. Two years later, he was invited to open the Moscow Biennale.
Critical essays
Critical essays
• Guy Davenport. "The Illuminations of Bernard Faucon" (IN: The Georgia Review, Winter 2002).
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Books and films
Almost all of Faucon's photography books have been published in France or Japan. The most recent and most available retrospective of his photographs is Jours d'Image, 1977-1995. Most of his books are out-of-print. A documentary about him was made, entitled Bernard Faucon: Fables (1992), directed by Jean Real. It is a 44-minute film. Les grandes vacances, une vie de Bernard Faucon (2009) directed by Camille Ponsin and written by Arthur Dreyfus, is displayed as a permanent exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chengdu, which was inaugurated in the same year.
Reception and standing
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Where the work is held
Collections and holdings
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Citations
References
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Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Photography
11,392 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Bernard B. FallPhotographer
- Bernard CahierPhotographer
- Bernard Cracroft AstonPhotographer
- Bernard DufourPhotographer
- Bernard HoffmanPhotographer
- Bernard LacostePhotographer
- Bernard Lamarche-VadelPhotographer
- Bernard LefebvrePhotographer
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