Émile Savitry (1903-1967), a little known photographer during the “racy days” of Montparnasse, mingled with the international artists and intellectuals that Paris had to offer from 1930 to 1950. The incredible success of his first exhibition of surrealist paintings, introduced by Aragon in 1929, provoked this modest gentleman to flee to Tahiti with Georges Malkine. Upon returning, he discovered Django Reinhardt in the port city of Toulon and brought him to Paris to discover jazz.

He would meet magnificent people at the Dôme and La Coupole cafés in the Vavin neighborhood including the Prévert brothers, Paul Grimault, Anaïs Nin, Alberto Giacometti, Anton Prinner, Victor Brauner, Óscar Domínguez. With Brassaï then Robert Doisneau, he engaged in a photography career at the Rapho agency. He would become a reporter, immortalizing Spanish Republican war refugees as well as the residents of the Pigalle neighborhood, he would become a set photographer for Marcel Carné for Les Portes de la nuit and La Fleur de l’âge, a fashion photographer for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, before returning to painting. His intimate artist’s portraits and nudes that were a wild success in Japan were testimony to his profound sensitivity. Victim of a sudden illness, Émile Savitry, “too alive to consider himself an artist”, died prematurely, in 1967. Today, his abundant works deserve to be honored.
This book published by the Editions des 5 Continents is the first devoted to this humanistic photographer. It is the catalog for the first comprehensive exposition of Emile Savitry’s work (88 pictures on display), co-produced by the Museu Valencia de la Il.lustració i de la Modernidat – MuVIM – of Valencia (Spain) and the Museum of the Abbaye-Sainte-Croix des Sables-d’Olonne – MASC – (France).

After the MuVIM (C/ Quevedo 10, 46001 Valencia) who will have presented « Émile Savitry, un photographe de Montparnasse » from May 5 to November 6, 2011, it will be featured at the MASC (rue de Verdun, 85100 Les Sables-d’Olonne) from November 26, 2011 to February 26, 2012.

The exhibition provides visitors with a nighttime journey through the streets of Pigalle, floating on the first swinging sounds of jazz, to the artist’s workshops of Montparnasse, occasionally featuring plump nudes; spectators warm to Medrano’s clowns, are intrigued by the magician’s strange masks, and leave inspired by the poetry of the streets, black and white cinema, and watching Charlie Chaplin flying with the Yves Joly’s puppet doves.
Some of the photos reveal a surrealistic atmosphere, typical of the works represented in the Museum of the Sables-d’Olonne.

Émile Savitry, un photographe de Montparnasse

Through November 6

MuVIM
C/ Quevedo 10
46001 Valencia

The book
21 × 23 cm, 112 p.
92 duotone illustrations
bound with flaps
bilingual edition: French and Spanish
ISBN 978-88-7439-593-4
€ 25,00
5 Continents Editions