Background
Gisele Freund was born into a textile merchant family on 19 December 1908 to Julius and Clara (nee Dressel) Freund, a wealthy Jewish couple in the Schöneberg district of Berlin.
Gisèle Freund's gravestone at Montparnasse Graveyard, Paris
Michel Dieuzaide (1981) Gisèle Freund (second at right) at the opening of her exhibition at Galerie municipale du Château d'eau, Toulouse, March 1981 with (from left) Michel Tournier, Jean Dieuzaide, Michel Delaborde, unidentified woman.
Self-Portrait
(A collection of photographs and photo essays that focuses...)
A collection of photographs and photo essays that focuses on the relationship between the photographer and the surrounding society.
https://www.amazon.com/Photography-Society-English-French-Gisele/dp/0879232501/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=Gis%C3%A8le+Freund&qid=1576492064&sr=8-6
Gisele Freund was born into a textile merchant family on 19 December 1908 to Julius and Clara (nee Dressel) Freund, a wealthy Jewish couple in the Schöneberg district of Berlin.
In 1931, Gisele Freund studied sociology and art history at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Breisgau, Germany; and from 1932-1933 she studied at the Institute for Social, Sciences, University of Frankfurt under Theodor W. Adorno, Karl Mannheim and Norbert Elias (also known as the Frankfurt School). At university she became an active member of a student socialist group and was determined to use photography as an integral part of her socialist practice.
Freund's father bought Gisèle her first camera, a Voigtländer 6x9 in 1925 and a Leica camera as a present for her graduation in 1929. One of her first stories, shot on May 1, 1932, "shows a recent march of anti-fascist students" who had been "regularly attacked by Nazi groups." The photos show Walter Benjamin, a good friend of Freund, and Bertolt Brecht.
In March 1933, a month after Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, Walter Benjamin fled to Paris on May 30, Gisele Freund followed him since she was both a socialist activist and a Jew. She escaped to Paris with her negatives strapped around her body to get them past the border guards. Gisèle and Walter Benjamin would continue their friendship in Paris, where she would famously photograph him reading at the National Library. They both studied and wrote about art in the 19th and 20th centuries as Gisele Freund continued her studies at the Sorbonne.
In 1935, Andre Malraux invited Gisele Freund to document First International Congress in Defence of Culture in Paris, where she was introduced to and subsequently photographed many of the notable French artists of her day. She befriended the famed literary partners, Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Company, and Adrienne Monnier of Maison des Amis des Livres. In 1935, Monnier arranged a marriage of convenience for Gisele Freund with Pierre Blum so that Freund could obtain a visa to remain in France legally (they officially divorced after the war in 1948).
In 1936, while Sylvia Beach was visiting the United States, Gisele Freund moved into Monnier and Beach's shared apartment and they became intimates. When Beach returned, she ended her intimate relationship with Monnier yet maintained a strong friendship with both Monnier and Freund. She finished her Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology and Art at the Sorbonne in 1936, and Monnier published the doctoral dissertation as "La photographie en France au dix-neuvieme siècle," under the La Maison des Amis des Livres imprint by Monnier.
Gisele Freund became internationally famous with her photojournalistic piece, "Northern England," which was published in Life (magazine) on December 14, 1936 and showed the effects of the depression in England. No magazine in France could publish color photographs at that time, so Freund's work with Life - one of the first color mass magazines - would start a lifelong relationship between the photographer and magazine.
In 1938, Monnier suggested that Gisele Freund photograph James Joyce for his upcoming book, Finnegans Wake. Joyce, who disliked being photographed, invited her to his Paris flat for a private screening of her previous work. He was impressed enough by Freund's work to allow her to photograph him, and over a period of three days, she captured the most intimate portraits of Joyce during his time in Paris.
In 1939, after being "twice refused admission to Tavistock Square," Gisele Freund gained the confidence of Virginia Woolf and captured the iconic color photographs of the Woolfs on display in the English National Portrait Gallery.
On June 10, 1940, with the Nazi invasion of Paris looming, Gisele Freund escaped Paris to Free France in the Dordogne. Her husband by convenience, Pierre, had been captured by the Nazis and sent to a prison camp. He was able to escape and met with Gisele Freund before going back to Paris to fight in the Resistance. As the wife of an escaped prisoner, a Jew, and a Socialist, Gisele Freund "feared for her life."
In 1941, with the help of André Malraux, Gisele Freund fled to Buenos Aires, Argentina at the invitation of Victoria Ocampo, director of the periodical Sur. Ocampo was at the center of the Argentinean intellectual elite, and through her she met and photographed many great writers and artists, such as Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda.
While living in Argentina, Gisele Freund started a publishing venture called Ediciones Victoria. She also founds a relief action committee for French artists and becomes a spokesperson for Free France.
In 1947, Gisele Freund signed a contract with Magnum Photos as a Latin America contributor, but by 1954, she was declared persona non grata by the U.S. Government at the height of the Red Scare for her socialist views, and Robert Capa forced her to break ties with Magnum. In 1950, her photocoverage of an bejewelled Eva Peron for Life (magazine) caused a diplomatic stir between the United States and Argentina and upset many of Peron's supporters. She moved to Mexico and became friends with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco.
In 1953, Gisele Freund moved back to Paris permanently. Over the life of her career, she went on over 80 photojournalism assignments, primarily for Life (magazine) and "Time (magazine)", but also Du, The Sunday Times (London), Vu, Picture Post, Weekly Illustrated, and Paris-Match (magazine), among others.
From the 1960s onward, Gisele Freund continued to write, and her reputation as an important portrait photographer grew with each successive exhibition.
(A collection of photographs and photo essays that focuses...)
Quotations:
"For a writer, his portrait is the only link he can establish with his readers. When we read a book whose content moves us, we are interested to look at the author's face, which is generally printed on the jacket since the publisher is aware of our wish to see if these features correspond to the idea we have formed of the author. This image is thus very important to the man of letters. He prefers a photographer in whom he can have confidence."
permits every possible distortion of reality: the character of the image is determined by the photographer's point of view and the demands of his patrons. The importance of photography does not rest primarily in its potential as an art form, but rather in its ability to shape our ideas, to influence our behaviour, and to define our society."
"In our technological age, when industry is always trying to create new needs, the photographic industry has expanded enormously because the photograph meets modem man's pressing need to express his own individuality."
"Although the first inventor of photography, Nicéphore Niépce, tried desperately to have his invention recognized, his efforts were in vain and he died in misery. Few people know his name today. But photography, which he discovered, has become the most common language of our civilization".
"When you do not like human beings, you cannot make good portraits."
Quotes from others about the person
"President Jacques Chirac praised her as '"one of the world's greatest photographers.""