Florence Henri: Mirror of the Avant-Gardes 1927-40

Florence Henri initially studied painting at the Academie Moderne, Paris. In 1928, she turned to photography after spending a semester at the Dessau Bauhaus. Henri continued to make photographs until WWII, when the Nazi occupation of France forbid her photographic style and materials became difficult to source. She turned her attention to abstract painting and continued to paint until her death in the early 1980s. Florence Henri initially studied painting at the Academie Moderne, Paris. In 1928, she turned to photography after spending a semester at the Dessau Bauhaus. Henri continued to make photographs until WWII, when the Nazi occupation of France forbid her photographic style and materials became difficult to source. She turned her attention to abstract painting and continued to paint until her death in the early 1980s. Giovanni Battista Martini manages the Florence Henri estate and worked very closely with the artist on her archive prior to her death in 1982. Marta Gili is director of the Jeu de Paume, Paris and also acts as a curator and art critic. She was formally the director of visual arts at Fundacio la Caixa in Barcelona and continues to teach graduate classes in Europe. Cristina Zelich is a photo historian, freelance curator and author of The White Book of Catalan Photographic Heritage (1996). She has collaborated on many publications and recently curated an exhibition on Lisette Model. Susan Kismaric is a curator in the department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She has been a visiting photography critic at Yale School of Art, and teaches at Fordham University.