Florence Henri. Avantgarde photographer - Bauhaus Online

Florence Henri. Avantgarde photographer
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Florence Henri. Avantgarde photographer
Following this first public appearance as a photographer, Henri was invited in 1929
to present her work at the exhibitions ‘Present-Day Photography’ in the Folkwang
Museum in Essen and ‘FiFo’ in Stuttgart, which are now recognized as being of
historic importance; she presented 21 pictures, including her self-portrait with two
reflected balls. The self-portrait shows her sitting in front of a long vertical mirror
with two chrome balls. The arrangement of the mirror and balls create the
appearance of a phallic symbol in which Henri’s face and body are reflected. In the
strongly geometric, almost Cubist construction of the space, these elements might
seem important merely for the design, but the idea that Henri is observing herself in
a deliberately object-like way in a ‘male’ mirror is suggested too strongly for that.
As if in an enclosed space, Henri examines her counterpart with a neutral air and
uses the symbol to set herself on an equal footing with men.
Mirrors become the most important feature in Henri’s first photographs. She used
them both for most of her self-dramatizations and also for portraits of friends, as
well as for commercial shots. She took part in the international exhibition entitled
‘Das Lichtbild’ [The Photograph] in Munich in 1930, and the following year she
presented her images of bobbins at a ‘Foreign Advertising Photography’ exhibition
in New York. The artistic quality of her photographs was compared with Man Ray,
László Moholy-Nagy and Adolphe Baron de Mayer, as well as the with winner of
the first prize at the exhibition, Herbert Bayer. Only three years after the new
photographer had taken her first pictures, her self-portrait achieved the equal
status with her male colleagues that she had been aiming for.
Up to the start of the Second World War, Henri established herself as a skilled
photographer with her own photographic studio in Paris (starting in 1929). When
the city was occupied by the Nazis, her photographic work declined noticeably. The
photographic materials needed were difficult to obtain, and in any case Henri’s
photographic style was forbidden under the Nazi occupation; she turned her
attention again to painting. With only a few later exceptions, the peak of her unique
photographic experiments and professional photographic work was in the period
from 1927 to 1930.
Even in the 1950s, Henri’s photographs from the Thirties were being celebrated as
icons of the avant-garde. Her photographic oeuvre was recognized during her
lifetime in one-woman exhibitions and publications in various journals, includingN-Z
Wochenschau.She also produced photographs during this period, such as a series
of pictures of the dancer Rosella Hightower. She died in Compiègne on 24 July
1982.
Literature:
Diana Dupont, Florence Henri: Artist-Photographer of the Avant-Garde, San
Francisco 1990; Herbert Molderings, "Florence Henri. Der 'Esprit Nouveau' in der
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Florence Henri. Avantgarde photographer
Published on bauhaus-online.de
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Fotografie", in: Herbert Molderings, Die Moderne der Fotografie, Hamburg 2008, S.
353-363; László Moholy-Nagy, "zu den fotografien von florence henri", i10
internationale revue, No. 17-18, 1928 (XII), S. 117; Kunstsammlung
Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (Hg.), Die andere Seite des Mondes.
Künstlerinnen der Avantgarde, Köln 2011; Hôtel des Arts / Giovanni Battista Martini
(Hg.), Florence Henri. Parcours dans la Modernité – Peinture / Photographie 1918 >
1979, Toulon 2010; letter by Florence Henri to Lou Scheper-Berkenkamp,
11.2.1928, Paris, Nachlass Scheper, Berlin
Published on 12/12/2012
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