Since its installation in 1996 in an artist studio located in Montparnasse, the Esther Woerdehoff gallery has made a name for itself in the world of photography and is now a key place in the Paris art scene. It gives an important place to contemporary photography but also keeps works from classic photographers such as Erwin Blumenfeld, Diane Arbus, René Burri or Mario Cravo Neto. The gallery keeps on attracting new artists and collectors and joins forces several times a year with partners in the field of photography for exhibitions or publications (PHPA Award / Hôtels Paris Rive Gauche, Niépce Award / Gens d’images). It also helps museums and cultural institutions on a regular basis with the conception of exhibitions in France and in Europe.
The Esther Woerdehoff gallery will participate to MIA 2012 with a booth completely dedicated to the artist Michel Comte, one of the best living portrait and fashion photographers. His work has been published by the most famous magazines and has been exhibited in prominent museums and galleries all over the world. His very peculiar style is the signature for all the production of this self-taught, restless and adventurous photographer. For more than 30 years now, he went through almost every photographic genre, but he developed an unsurpassed mastery in female portraits. He condenses charm in one image, captures a facial expression that seems to reveal the soul of the model, he subtly doses spontaneity and symbolic star poses. Through his eyes, women become timeless Goddess as well as witnesses of their time. Michel Comte celebrates their strength and their sex appeal without turning them into objects. He glorifies their beauty in brilliant compositions, always choosing that decisive moment when a woman’s expression and posture reveal her inner self. His empathic and seductive images seem to capture the essence of the sitters with a surprising immediacy. According to Christian Brändle, director of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich and author of the essay in the catalogue Michel Comte – 360°: “his portraits of Hollywood stars, top models, sportsmen or pop stars, who are normally the prisoners of the image they want to show or of the vision people have of them, never portrayed those individuals in their conventional roles. In fact, the spectator has a tangible, almost a carnal access to the subjects portrayed. When asked about their experience working with him, the famous sitters all insist on the dialogue they had with the photographer.“On his photo you can see me as I really am.”
Galerie Esther Woerdehoff
36, rue Falguière
F – 75015 Paris
Tél: 33 9 51 51 24 50
Email: [email protected]
