Émile Savitry
| Émile Savitry | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Dupont 21 January 1903 Saigon, Vietnam |
| Died | 30 October 1967 (aged 64) Paris |
| Nationality | French |
| Education | École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Grande Chaumiere Academy of Fine Arts |
| Known for | Photography, Painting |
| Movement | Surrealism, Humanist photography |
| Awards | Prix de la critique, 1962 |
Émile Savitry (1903-1967) was a French photographer and painter.
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.
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. 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). 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: ), and happened upon an 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.
...
Wikipedia