His real name being Laslo Elkan, Lucien Hervé arrives in France in 1929, where he first focuses his attention on fashion drawing and on painting before turning to photo-journalism in 1938; he works at that time for Marianne-Magazine and Vu. His photographs of architecture make him famous after the war: geometrical framings, low-angle shots… his style recalls Russian Constructivism; he plays with lines and architectural volumes, makes use of contrasts between light and shadow for compositions aiming at abstraction. A photographer attracted to Le Corbusier, all of whose construction-sites he will follow from 1949 to 1962, Lucien Hervé also covered the works of other great architects such as Breuer, Oscar Niemeyer, Aalto, Prouvé…
Biographical note
by Christelle Rochette
curatorial assistant at the Nicéphore Niépce Museum