Amandine Labrune is the granddaughter of photographer Georges Martin. She sends us this text accompanied by a second one by Jean-François Camp.
I am Amandine Labrune, creative director in Paris and granddaughter of photographer Georges Martin.
I would like the work and the very numerous archives of my grandfather Georges Martin to be known, humanist photographer from the years 45-62, formerly reporter at Rapho and also a designer and decorator.
I created an online gallery to show and sell his photos in art prints, signed and numbered (PICTO PARIS / Thomas Consani print).
Jean-Francois Camp wrote a very beautiful text on my grandfather.
So: here it is!
Amandine Labrune
“I had the chance to know Georges Martin, photographer, illustrator, decorator and brilliant jack-of-all-trades, through my parents who, at the end of the 1950s, had had the idea of entrusting him with the renovation of their apartment. Haussmanian in a modern style à la Charlotte Perriand, very bright with very colorful geometries. The result was spectacular and still remains in my memory as a magical place. But, in those years, Georges was a much better known photographer than Doisneau or Willi Ronis because he worked a lot for fashion and industry. His studio on rue des Saussaies overlooked place Beauvau, opposite the Elysée Palace. In his spare time, like this whole generation of humanist photographers, he traveled around Paris at night, during the day, whether it was snowing or windy with his Rolleiflex slung over his shoulder in search of the decisive moment. His work reflects this post-war period, the hope and vibrant humanity of that time. The misfortune was that he died prematurely in 1962, leaving a considerable amount of work, more than twenty thousand shots. His wife, Claude Saint-Cyr, famous milliner, and his daughter Christine let time slip away until his granddaughter, Amandine opened the shoe boxes and unearthed the treasures that were lying dormant there.
Georges Matin can now live again through the photographs that we discover but also with his wooden sculptures that we can admire at the Museum of Decorative Arts.”
Jean-Francois Camp
Galerie DUREV
Georges Martin / Studio421
https://georgesmartin.com
