Saturday, August 18, 2012

Martine Franck died this last Thursday


 Martine Franck - Le Brusc, France, 1976
Martine Franck (1938-2012) was a Belgian photographer, and a member of the Magnum Photos agency. She was the second wife of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson after his divorce from Ratna Mohini, and was president and co-founder of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, which administrates his estate. She died 16 August 2012. Born in Belgium, Franck grew up in the United States and England, and studied art history at the University of Madrid and at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. From 1963 she worked at Time-Life in Paris as an assistant to photographers Eliot Elisofon and Gjon Mili. Martine Franck met Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1966 when she was photographing Paris fashion shows for the New York Times. They were married in 1970. She worked at Vu (photo agency) in Paris from 1970 to 1971, and co-founded the Viva (photo agency) in 1972. Franck is not only known for her contribution to the promotion of Cartier-Bresson, but as a photographer in her own right. She became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1983, and had worked for Vogue magazine, for which she completed a series on women. She has been the official photographer of the Théâtre du Soleil since 1964 thanks to her friendship with Ariane Mnouchkine. In 1983 she completed a project for the French Ministry of Women's Rights and in 1985 she collaborated with the International Federation of Little Brothers of the Poor. In 1993 she first traveled to the Irish island of Tory where she documented the ancient Gaelic community. She also traveled to Tibet and Nepal, and with the help of Marilyn Silverstone photographed the education system of the Tibetan Tulkus monks. In 2003 and 2004 she returned to Paris to document the work of theater director Robert Wilson who was staging La Fontaine's fables at the Comédie Française. At the time of her death she lived in Paris.

 Martine Franck -Tulku Khentrol Lodro Rabsel and tutor Llagyel Shechen in the Bonarth Monastery, Nepal, 1996

No comments: