Étienne Carjat

Étienne Carjat ( born March 28, 1828 in Fareins in the Department of Ain, † March 19, 1906 in Paris) was a French caricaturist, writer and photographer who was known for his portraits of celebrities.

Life and work

Étienne Carjat was initially a product designer and connected him with his contemporary Nadar a passionate passion for the theater. He published in 1854 a series of lithographs entitled Le Théâtre à la ville.

1858 Photographer Pierre Petit trained him in portrait photography and Étienne Carjat opened in 1861, a photo studio in the rue Laffitte in Paris.

Carjat portrayed - without any of the usual time, decorative elements in the background - a number of famous personalities of its surroundings, the French bohemian. These included the writer Alexandre Dumas, Alexandre Dumas fils, Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Émile Zola, the composer Georges Bizet, Giuseppe Verdi, Hector Berlioz, Rossini and the painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, William Wyld, Gustave Courbet, Ingres, Honoré Daumier and Eugène Delacroix addition Carjat photographed the actress Sarah Bernhardt, the mime Charles Deburau, the statesman Léon Gambetta and Jules Michelet the historian.

At first he used it as a photographic technique to albumin silver print, which was replaced by the Woodburytypie that made mass production possible, which for example was required for the printing.

He was one of the editors of magazines Le Diogène and Le Boulevard, political poems published in the journal La Commune and supported the Paris Commune.

1937 photographic works of Étienne Carjat at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and were issued in 1977, his photographic works at documenta 6 in Kassel in the department were shown 150 Years of Photography.

Photographs of him are traded at Christie's and Sotheby's.