A mermaid is a
marine creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of
a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. The first
stories appeared in ancient Assyria. Mermaids can be benevolent or beneficent.
Lucien Clergue
Nu de la Mer, Camargue, 1962
Vintage silver gelatin print
19 × 23 in; 48.3 × 58.4 cm
Private collection
Lucien Clergue (August 14, 1934 – November 15, 2014) was a French photographer. He was Chairman of the Academy of Fine Arts, Paris for 2013.
Clergue was born in Arles, France. At the age of 7 he began learning to play the violin, and after several years of study his teacher admitted that he had nothing more to teach him. Clergue was from a family of shopkeepers and could not afford to pursue further studies in a college or university school of music, such as a conservatory. In 1949, he learned the basics of photography. Four years later, at a corrida in Arles, he showed his photographs to Spanish painter Pablo Picasso who, though subdued, asked to see more of his work. Within a year and a half, young Clergue worked on his photography with the goal of sending more images to Picasso. During this period, he worked on a series of photographs of traveling entertainers, acrobats and harlequins, the « Saltimbanques ». He also worked on a series whose subject was carrion.
Lucien Clergue
Nu Drapé dans la Rivière, Bessages, 2005
Gelatin silver print
14 3/5 × 22 2/5 in; 37 × 57 cm
Private collection
Clergue’s work is deeply rooted in his home city of Arles. Picking up a camera as a young man in post-war Provence, he took a different route than other artists of his generation, turning his lens on the rubble and destruction of France after the war, often shooting in low-lit, decimated homes. In addition to his scenes of the city, Clergue’s oeuvre includes incisive images of peers such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and other iconic figures in the south of France. It is his faceless female nudes, however—from the subtle eroticism of his beachside scenes to the chic geometries of his black-and-white “Nu Zebre” series—that have become the artist’s signature. More on Lucien Clergue
Lucien Clergue
Nu de la Mer (No. 2), ca. 1980
Gelatin Silver Print
16 × 23 in; 40.6 × 58.4 cm
Private collection
In 1968, and with his friend Michel Tournier, Clergue founded the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival which is held annually in July in Arles.
Clergue’s photographs are in the collections of numerous well-known museums and private collectors. His photographs have been exhibited in over 100 solo exhibitions worldwide, with noted exhibitions such as in 1961, at the Museum of Modern Art New York.
He was named Knight of the Légion d'honneur in 2003 and elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute of France on May 31, 2006, at the same time as a new section dedicated to photography was created. Clergue was the first photographer to enter the Academy to a position devoted specifically to photography. More on Lucien Clergue
Lucien Clergue
Nu de la Mer, Camargue, 1967
Gelatin silver print
23 1/2 × 19 1/2 in; 59.7 × 49.5 cm
Private collection
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