Claudine Maugendre died on Wednesday 1 March 2017. She was one of the most brilliant photo editors of the last forty years. She was with the journalist Jean Francois Bizot one of the most beautiful actors of the saga Actuel, this flamboyant magazine which from 1971 to 1975 and from 1979 to 1994 was a nursery of journalistic and photographic talents. Claudine was the sister, the mother, the guardian, the banker of an incalculable number of photographers. Sylvie Rebbot, Geo’s former photo director, one of her best friends and roommate of the various festivals has this very pretty definition: “She was a faithful person in friendships and enmities.” When the saga Actuel disappeared, she became in 2000s the founder and the person responsible for the night of the year at the annual Arles photo festival until the departure of François Hébel two years ago. About her death, Alain Keler, photographer member of Sygma, Gamma, and today MYOP, writes: “In Arles, in those distant years, we sometimes used to go to the beach. One very late evening, on her return, probably after a meal with a lot of wine, Claudine jumped alone in the swimming pool of the hotel, in the middle of the buildings and the rooms. The echo of her dive alerted the guards, because this gymnastics was forbidden beyond a certain hour. She laughed, we laughed. She left with all her memories, and her secrets. ”
Jean-Jacques Naudet
