Robert Demachy

(b St Germain-en-Laye, 7 July 1859; d Hennequeville, Normandy, 29 Dec 1936). French photographer, writer and theorist. He was from a banking family and was financially secure, which enabled him to devote all his time to photography from 1880 to 1914. He was especially interested in the gum bichromate printing process, which could be easily hand tinted, and in which he achieved remarkably subtle effects. He tackled all the genres: oriental scenes, nudes, dancers (e.g. Behind the Scenes, 1900; New York, Met.), portraits (e.g. of Mlle D., pubd in Camera Work, 16 Oct 1906), landscapes and scenes from everyday life. In subject-matter his works oscillate between naturalism, as in Acad?mie (1900; New York, Met.), and symbolism as in Struggle. His works were frequently exhibited (Paris, London, Vienna, New York) and were an instant success. In 1904 Alfred Stieglitz devoted a portfolio to Demachy in his review Camera Work.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Demachy, Robert (1859-1936), French pictorialist photographer. Wealth allowed Demachy the freedom to pursue his artistic interests. An active photographer from c. 1880, he built an international reputation in the 1890s, and was perhaps France's most prominent photographic artist by the beginning of the 20th century.

A founder member of the Photo-Club de Paris, he contributed pictures to Camera Work, joined the Linked Ring (1905), and won recognition from London's Royal Photographic Society. His diverse subject matter (which included portraits, landscapes, Breton country life, and figure studies) was treated with a strong sense of the aesthetic. Not content with selecting lenses for their softness of focus, he offended purists by championing the manipulated image. Negatives were just a starting point: he retouched them, often boldly, and employed printing techniques that offered more atmosphere than sharpness. He embraced the gum bichromate process in the mid-1890s and, from 1904, experimented with oil-based processes. The results often had a painterly quality reminiscent of Impressionism. Demachy also lectured and wrote prolifically on photographic topics. He gave up photography in 1914, but was featured alongside fellow pictorialist Émile Constant Puyo in a Parisian retrospective exhibition in 1931.

— Robert Pols

Bibliography

• Marbot, B., Poivert, M., and Royet, V., Le Pictorialisme en France (1992)