They are on my mind. French women by choice or by birth, they have offered me their beauty, their strength, their gentle madness. No other choice but to come intimately face-to-face, and they are destabilized , and laid bare for you. There is no posing, no filter. Retouched, they wouldn’t be the same. Only natural and artless do they share their world, their secrets. Nude portraits of women whom I admire, who could be sisters or friends.
This book is a story of a chase, of a pursuit between long talks after dark and seaside seduction in summer. Some said yes right away. They submitted to my whim. With others, to whom modesty is second nature, I had to be insistent, persevering. They let me in, and I followed them to their hideaways: apartments with high ceilings, cliffs, or bay windows flooded with sunlight or bathed in darkness. Wherever they felt at home. I traveled across France to meet them, my heart beating fast, and our photographic idylls had the fragrance of a summer romance: intense and fleeting.
Sonia Sieff
Sonia Sieff, Les Françaises
Published by Rizzoli, New York
$45
Book signing at Collete, March 1, 2017 from 5 to 6:30 pm.
