Martine Franck's background is Art History, having studied at the University of Madrid and the École du Louvre in Paris. Her practicum in Photography was under the helm of Eliot Elisofon and Gjon Mili at Time-Life Photo Laboratories in Paris in the mid-1960's. Apprenticeship complete, Ms. Franck made her way as a freelance photographer for varied American and European publications, in addition to playing a role in the establishment of the Viva photo agency in the 1970s. In 1980 Martine Franck became a member of the renown Magnum photo agency—the cooperative founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Chim (David Seymour), and George Rodger in 1947—one of four women in the forty-four member troupe.

Martine Franck was married to Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1970. Where her husband has since become a devoted draughtsman, she has continued to lead a life of travel, photographing the social landscape as it passes and approaches. There is a reserved quality to Ms. Franck's images; a shyness that is overcome due to her wielding of the camera, as if the camera is a license in and of itself; a passport. Most of her work grazes the simplicities of the everyday, of varied social classes and diversified cultures.

Her most noted piece to date, Swimming pool designed by Alain Capeilléres, 1976, reveals a sublime articulation of design—a supreme landscape of geometries softened by the leisurely curves of the gesturing figures. Many of her images hark on this type of purity, with regards to the shapes that make up a given landscape. But for the most part, Ms. Franck's work lends itself to a more personal/ portrait-like approach to her subjects. Attracted to 'characters,' her favored subjects tend to range from children to committed seniors, actors and cultural personalities (artists & intellectuals).

This exhibition of Martine Franck's work will cover the breadth of her photographic career.


Click here to read the New York Times review of Martine Franck