The rumor started Saturday morning: Yan Morvan is dead.
Its origin was unclear: a Hell’s Angel would have announced it to a friend of Yan’s who was hospitalized and not very lucid.
I refused to believe it. I was wrong: Yan is dead.
He was a formidable character, an incredible provocateur, an erudite esthete and above all a rare and passionate photographer. A friend too, for 45 years, since the day he introduced himself to PHOTO.
I published him the following month and he made his debuts at Match.
For several years, Yan published his journal of images from Arles in PHOTO, an appointment that we reprinted for the Eye of Photography for Perpignan and Paris Photo.
Everyone loved having their portrait shot by him.
He touched on all areas of photography.
He was obsessed with images. He loved being published and sometimes when he wasn’t, he would self-publish his work in a book or magazine that he created for the occasion.
All subjects appealed to him, especially the most dangerous and the most shady, which sometimes brought him to the brink of catastrophe.
His greatest achievement: the locations of the great battles of history throughout the world.
He took 10 years to complete it and the book published by Vera Hoffmann is a masterpiece.
A month ago, we were discussing the return of Paris Photo to the Grand Palais and the resumption of his journal of images.
Much Love Yan.
Jean-Jacques Naudet
