Pierre Boulat

Pierre Boulat. Retrospective

Pierre Boulat created photography, not art. He always said:'I'm like a plumber, I just get on with the job of being a photographer.' A difficult job and often thankless, but Boulat did it with rigour and passion. He took pictures every day and thought, spoke and wrote in the language of photography. For him there was no greater freedom than photographing the things he loved: life, people, women (above all), his friends, clouds-133; Everything except war and poverty, since he could not bear to see others suffer. Arthur Rubinstein, Yves Saint Laurent, cadets at West Point, Polish miners, the smile of Fra Angelico's Virgin-133; All these subjects gave him equal satisfaction. He derived pleasure from photography for six decades. But he never sought the easy way out. I remember one summer when he decided to capture the movement of stars in the sky. He could have simply bought the appropriate lens. No, he preferred to make one himself from meccano blocks, and we spent every night that August on the terrace, camera pointing up at the sky-133; For him that was an essential part of photography: devising new ways of doing things -151; he was full of ideas and put every technical means at his disposal, he had the knack, then he took the photo and never failed to share the results with his entourage. Because he loved photography, he loved to show people his shots. This was not egocentrism or vanity. It was a way of sharing his pleasure with others. And he liked to share the joys of life with others, the sense of freedom. Driving right across Europe at the wheel of his car, flying a biplane irrespective of the risk, scaling the uplands of Southern Lebanon with a keffiyeh on his head, turning up in the thick of an anti-American demonstration in China-133; all for the sake of a photo. Throughout his life Pierre was right there, behind the lens.Olivier Kaeppelin said of him:'His sensibility towards people and the world enabled him to immediately understand the essence of whatever he saw, whether it was the light, an object or a person. Like a shaman, he was simultaneously actor, interpreter and finally creator, adding to bare fact his own'take' on things, which due to his remarkable dynamism revealed all the virtual forms of reality, every possible interpretation. He endlessly enriched and intensified whatever he looked at-133; Most important for him was the constant renewal of photography. This is how he took pictures, trying to be at the heart of any nascent movement.'

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Pierre Boulat: 1924–1998

Pierre Boulat was born on June 3 1924, in a small village in Seine-et-Marne. You might say he was born holding a camera, since throughout his life photography governed everything he saw, thought, acted and wrote. He set up a small laboratory to develop amateur snaps in 1938 and began taking identity photos for the local town hall. In 1940 he started a course at the Ecole Nationale de Photographie et de Cinema in Paris and graduated in 1943, the best student of his class. To avoid forced labour in Germany he moved from occupied France to the free zone of Vichy, working for the SCP state photography service.

Immediately after the French liberation from Nazi occupation Pierre Boulat found work as a photographer for the weekly magazine’Samedi Soir’, then with’France-Dimanche’,’Elle’ and’Paris-Presse’, covering portraits, crime and current affairs. He grew familiar with the Middle East and made his first trip to the USA, where he spent four months.

In 1948 Boulat travelled to Cairo, where he published his book’Images of Egypt’. On his return to Paris in 1950 he opened a fashion studio and worked freelance for the Parisian and American press. He produced a series of reportages for the weekly’Look Magazine’ entitled’Petit Hotel a Paris’,’Le Quartier de la Goutte d’Or’ and’L’enfance perdue’, for which he received an Encyclopaedia Britannica award.

From 1955 Pierre Boulat worked for the prestigious American’Life’ magazine, where he signed his first exclusivity contract in 1957. His collaboration with’Life’ continued until the magazine closed in December 1972. Boulat’s themes included news, politics, fashion, celebrity portraits and photo reporting from all over the world.

During this period he produced several scoops. He became the first Western journalist to visit the USSR after the Second World War (1955) and post-revolutionary China (1964). Boulat also compiled the famous reportages’West Point Academy, USA’ (1957),’View of American Women’ (1957),’Palestinians’ (1970) and’Fight against Drugs’ in the Mediterranean (1970).

At the same time he shot several cover photos for’Time Magazine’.

In 1972 Stanley Kubrick chose Pierre Boulat as photographer for the first part of his film’2001: A Space Odyssey’.

After’Life’ magazine folded Pierre Boulat received 200 kg of archive material — black-and-white and colour negatives now preserved in the Cosmos agency archives. He again turned freelance, issuing a book about the Sahara Desert for’Time Life Books’ and working by contract with’People Magazine’ for the next five years. He was also a correspondent for’Smithsonian’ and magazines including’Geo’,’Le Figaro Magazine’,’Actuel’,’Newton au Japon’ and’Le National Geographic Magazine’, for whom he produced a large-scale reportage on Carrare. He collaborated on several joint projects:’A Day in the Life of Australia’,’Hello Singapore’ and’3 Days in France’. Boulat was catalogue photographer for the 1984 exhibition of work by couturier Yves Saint Laurent at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

In 1982 Pierre Boulat began a ten-year collaboration with’Paris Match’ which enabled him to develop his skills as a master of large-scale photo reports. This included features on Richard Wagner, Liszt, the First Crusade, Margaret Mitchell... a fashion report on the 20th anniversary of Yves St Laurent’s creative career, and photo essays on ’The Life of the French in 2017′, the Danube and the voyage of Christopher Columbus. Two of his reportages for’Paris Match’ were the subject of exhibitions:’The Normandy Landing’ at the Olympus Gallery, Forum des Halles, in 1984; and the three-part’French Revolution’ at the Canon Gallery, Plateau Beaubourg (1988).

Pierre Boulat participated in the’Visa pour l’Image’ festival at Perpignan in 1992 with his exhibit’My Years with’Life’ — 50 Years of Photos’. Also in 1992 he published a book of the same name. This exhibition was subsequently shown by regional departments of the national contemporary art foundation (FNAC), the La Chambre Claire Gallery in Paris and the Bordeaux festival’Arret sur l’Image’ in April 1993.

In 1992 the Les Procedes Gallery in Vanves presented an exhibition of Pierre Boulat’s work entitled’Women’. He exhibited’Perpignan, C’est Ca!’, work specially created for the Perpignan festival’Visa pour l’Image’ (1993), and in 1994 received the’Chevalier of Arts and Letters’ medal.

FNAC has acquired about a dozen of his fashion photos as well as his series on North Africans in Paris.

The same year Pierre Boulat began work on ’The Aging of a Sommelier’s Nose’, a volume of mainly black-and-white and a few colour photographs on wine and taste based on Lyonel, the sommelier at Bernard Loiseau’s restaurant. He also published the book’Good Night, Pierre’, a humorous and imaginary sequel to his work as a journalist (exhibited at the Natalie Seroussi Gallery in Paris).

At the end of his life Pierre Boulat suffered from Parkinson’s disease and he died on January 11 1998, after devoting 60 years of his life to an illustrious career as photo journalist. He is represented by the Cosmos agency.