About This Exhibit

Nu de la Mer

French photographer Lucien Clergue’s work is deeply rooted in his home city of Arles, where he was born on August 14, 1934. Picking up a camera as a young man in post-war Provence, he took a different route than other artists of his generation, turning his lens on the rubble and destruction of France after the war, often shooting in low-lit, decimated homes.

In addition to his scenes of the city, Clergue’s oeuvre includes incisive images of peers such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and other iconic figures in the south of France. It is his faceless female nudes, however—from the subtle eroticism of his beach-side scenes to the chic geometries of his black-and-white “Nu Zebre” series—that are the artist’s signature work.

In 1968, and with his friend Michel Tournier, Clergue founded the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival which is held annually in July in Arles. He was named Knight of the Légion d'honneur in 2003 and elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute of France on May 31, 2006, at the same time as a new section dedicated to photography was created. Clergue was the first photographer to enter the Academy to a position devoted specifically to photography.

Ligues de Main, Ligues de Vie, Pasadena ( Unique 25 Image Collage of Polaroids)

He was Chairman of the Academy of Fine Arts for 2013.

Clergue's photographs are in the collections of numerous well-known museums and private collectors. His photographs have been exhibited in over 100 solo exhibitions worldwide, with noted exhibitions such as in 1961, at the Museum of Modern Art New York, the last exhibition organized by Edward Steichen with Lucien Clergue, Bill Brandt and Yasuhiro Ishimoto. Museums with large collections of his work include The Fogg Museum at Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His work, Fontaines du Grand Palais (Fountains of the Grand Palais), is in Museo cantonale d'arte [de] of Lugano. His photographs of Jean Cocteau are on permanent display at the Jean Cocteau Museum in Menton, France.

He died on November 15, 2014, Nîmes, France, after a long illness.