Émile Savitry

Also worked under the name Emile Savitry.

Born at Saigon in 1903, died at Paris in 1967.

Birth Name — Dupont

Born — 1903 1 21

Birthplace — Saigon, Vietnam

Died — 1967 10 30

Field — Photography, Painting

Training — École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Grande Chaumiere Academy of Fine Arts

Humanist

Movement — Surrealism, Humanist photography

1962

Awards — Prix de la critique, 1962

painter

Émile Savitry (1903–1967) was a French photographer and painter.

1920

1924

Born in Saigon, in 1903, into the wealthy colonial industrialist family of Felix Marius Alphonse Dupont and Cecile Leonie Audra, Émile renamed himself Savitry to go at age 17 to study painting (1920–1924) at École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs and at the private Grande Chaumiere Academy of Fine Arts (still located in Paris at 14, Rue de la Grande Chaumiere), until 1924.

1929

1897

1982

poet

Associated with poet Robert Desnos and painter André Derain and the Surrealists, Savitry exhibited in 1929 at dealer Zborowski's gallery a sellout show, the catalogue essay of which was penned by celebrated Surrealist poet Louis Aragon (1897-1982).

However, though on the threshold of artistic fame he decamped to Polynesia.

1972

Commentators propose different reasons for this decision; "He had more than one string to his art," wrote Claude Roy in 1972, "painting, photography, travel (and doing nothing).

11 March 1929

But what did not interest him was to be successful." (and as a wealthy man, despite the 1929 recession, Savitry did not need the proceeds of success); Barbara Creed notes that "The Surrealists saw travel as a means to achieve a state of dépaysement "; while another factor may have been the disagreements between the Surrealists over their association with Communism, which reached a climax with André Breton's letter of provocation to the group, and meeting with them on 11 March 1929, on the issue of working collectively, to which idea Savitry was amongst the majority of the group in responding positively, innocently naming the reluctant, and soon to be expelled, Desnos as a desirable collaborator .

Savitry was accompanied on his journey to the tropics by surrealist painter Georges Malkin and Yvette Ledoux, a young American woman whom he'd just met.

On arrival she chose to go with Malkin.

Savitry had taken a Gaumont Block-Notes 6x9 camera, so named for its shape and its ingenious sheet magazine (see: https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Gaumont_Block-Notes), and happened upon a beached 'ghost ship'.

Friedrich W.

Murnau, in the middle of shooting his ill-fated movie Tabou, was impressed by Savitry's boat picture and engaged him on his team to research Polynesian iconography and to make film stills.

1930

1933

On return to Paris in 1930 Savitry commenced a career as a photographer, co-founding with Charles Rado, Brassaï and Ergy Landau in 1933 the Rapho agency.

For Rapho, he covered the massive refugee influx into the South of France from the Spanish Civil War.

His reportage for Match and other magazines also features his close friend Django Reinhardt, whom he met in Toulon and whose installation with his family in Paris he sponsored, introducing Django into the jazz scene at La Boîte à Matelots at 10 rue Fontaine.

1932

1934

1899

1984

From 1932 to 1934, he assisted Brassaï (1899–1984).

February 1939

In February 1939, his reportage on the rue Pigalle theatre precinct is published in Paris Match.

September 1939

Mobilized in September 1939, he joined the battalion of Engineering in Avignon.

2 April 1940

1915

2010

1900

1989

illustrator

dancer

journalist

On 2 April 1940, at Hyères, he married the Argentinean painter and illustrator Elsa Henriquez (1915 ?–2010), daughter of Peruvian dancer Helba Huara (1900–1989) and Peruvian journalist Gonzalo More, and through them Savitry met and photographed a number of Argentinian poets and writers.

They had a son, Francis "Paco" Dupont.

After the war, he helped to revive the Rapho agency in Paris, joined there by Robert Doisneau and Willy Ronis.

He was later a regular contributor to fashion magazines Vogue, Jardin des Modes and Harper's Bazaar.

He was also published in the 1950s in Regards, Visages du Monde, Cavalcade, Point de Vue and Images du Monde, Caliban, Picture Post and Réalités.

writer

sculptor

He is best known for his portraits of mid-century personalities, many of whom were close friends: actors Anouk Aimée, Brigitte Bardot, Pierre Brasseur, Madeleine Renaud, Serge Reggiani and Charlie Chaplin, film directors Jacques Prévert and Marcel Carné, sculptors Alberto Giacometti, Victor Brauner and Oscar Dominiguez, Marcel Jean, Bertold Bartosch, Pierre Loeb, musicians Django Reinhardt, Claude Luter, Édith Piaf, writer Colette, trans* sculptor Anton Prinner, and Surrealist painter Germain Vandersteen.

1942

filmmaker

During the war Savitry corresponded with filmmaker Paul Grimault (who was posted the Lower Rhine), and made stills from 1942 for Jacques Prévert and Marcel Carné.

1947

In 1947 he moves to Belle Île to be on the set of Carné's La Fleur de l'âge, making a famous image of Anouk Aimée holding a kitten.

director

He also worked for the director Pierre Billon and Jean Grémillon.

1931

1931 Tabou dir.

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

1942 Lumière d'été dir.

Jean Grémillon

1946

1946 Portes de la nuit dir.

Marcel Carné

1947 La Fleur de l'âge dir.

1949

1949 Au revoir monsieur Grock dir.

Pierre Billon

Savitry returned to painting in the 1960s with an exhibition at the Renée Laporte gallery in Antibes.

1964

He contributed the only painting unsold from his 1929 Zborowski show La lumiére du gaz arrivant dans les ruines to the exhibition 'Le Surréalisme: Sources, Histoire, Affinités' at Charpentier Gallery, Paris, in 1964.

1929 Paris, Galerie Zborowski

1948

1948 French Photography, exhibition organised by the Photo League, New York

1963

1963 Antibes, Galerie Laporte, 31 paintings

1964 Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Le Surréalisme : Sources, Histoire, Affinités.

1981

1937

1957

1981 Paris, Centre Georges-Pompidou Paris 1937–Paris 1957, re-showing of the exhibition held at Photo League of New York in 1948

1989 Paris, at premises of Le Monde Les Années Montparnasse.

1990

1990 Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, 50 ans de photographies de presse, archives photographiques de Paris-Soir France-Soir et Paris-Match

2004

2004 New York, Zabriskie Gallery

2007

2007 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France La photographie humaniste

2008

2008 Vendôme Museum

2011

106

2012

2011 L'Abbaye Sainte-Croix aux Sables d'Olonne Museum, 106 photographs, 20 Dec 2011 – 26 Feb 2012

2011 5 May to 6 Nov Émile Savitry, un photographe de Montparnasse, Valence, Musée de l'Illustration et de la Modernité de Valence ( MuVim )

2013

2012 25 Oct to 27 Jan 2012 - 2013 Émile Savitry, un photographe de Montparnasse, Gentilly, Maison de la Photographie Robert-Doisneau

April 2013

April 2013 exhibition under the auspices of the Festival Photo de Mer de Vannes

2016

2016 8 June to 5 October, Paris, Musée Mendjisky - Écoles de Paris, Émile Savitry.

A photographer from Montparnasse