Poivert, Michel.La Photographie contemporaine. Paris:
Flammarion, 2002.
Roche, Denis.La disparition des lucioles (re ́flexions sur
l’acte photographique). Paris: Editions de l’e ́toile, 1982.
Barthes, Roland.La Chambre claire. Notes sur la photogra-
phie. Paris: Editions de l’e ́toile, Gallimard Seuil, 1980.
(Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, New York:
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Schaeffer, Jean-Marie.L’Image pre ́caire: du dispositif photo-
graphique. Paris: Seuil, 1987.MARTINE FRANCK
Belgian
One of only five women photographers to be full
members of Magnum Photos, Martine Franck has
placed her mark on photography through her com-
passion and commitment to the profession. Her
consistent strength in image-making is evidenced
through the visual telling of diverse stories in her
images. Yet Franck has resisted any attempt by
others to label her work with any specific gendered
viewpoint, commenting that photography is a lan-
guage through which reality is made understand-
able, regardless of gender.
Born on 2 April 1938 in Antwerp, Franck was
educated in the United States, primarily in New
York and Arizona, before finishing her childhood
education at the Heathfield School in Ascot, Eng-
land in 1954. From 1956–1957 she studied at the
University of Madrid and then from 1958–1963 at
the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. Saying the camera
gave her a ‘‘function,’’ Franck’s early interest in
photography came from her grandfather and her
first forays into photography began with trips
to China, Japan, and India in 1963. The following
year she took a job as the photographic assistant to
Eliot Elisofon and Gjon Mili at the Time-Life
Photo Laboratories in Paris and in 1965 Franck
began freelancing for Life, Fortune, Sports Illu-
strated, New York Times, andVogue.
Since the 1960s, Franck has been photographing
with a discipline and drive to create documentary
images that become more than mere records.
Therefore, her work ranges from being aestheti-
cally forceful to socially relevant, depending upon
the project she has chosen. Cool with a graphic
vigor, Le Luberon, Alpes-de-Haute, Provence,
France, 1976, the high contrast landscape pushes
towards the viewer as if the land is an ocean of
undulating, metallic strips. In other images, subtle
irony plays an underlying element in what seems to
be straightforward documentary. In a photograph
dated 1972, a well-dressed woman leans over to
read the wall text accompanying a painting by
Paul Delvaux, not noticing how her action plays
into the Delvaux’s painted nude woman walking
towards her. Other times, such as is the case with
the The ́aˆtre du Solei work, the extended series
seems like a labor of love threaded into the lens
of her camera. Through her friend, Ariane
Mnouchkine, in 1965, she began her association
with the newly founded The ́aˆtre du Soleil coopera-
tive. In the years since then, Franck has shown how
her work and the company have matured to a high
level of professionalism and acclaim.
During the 1970s Franck began exploring the
possibilities of film by being the director ofMusic
at AspenandWhat has happened to the American
Indian?This interest continued withContre l’oubli:
Lettre a Mamadou Mauritania(1991) and the pro-
duction of filmed stills with Robert Delpire of
Ariane & Co. The ́aˆtre du Soleil(1995).
After becoming a member of the Vu photogra-
phers agency from 1970 to 1971, in 1972 she be-
came one of the seven founders of the photography
agency Agence Viva, an organization seeking more
social goals beyond straight documentary image-
making. After Viva closed in 1979, Franck became
an associate member of the Magnum Photos coop-
erative agency the following year. In 1983 she
became a full member of the agency. Throughout
her career in photography, Franck’s interest in the
human face has led her to create some of most
remarkable and telling portraits. In her book and
exhibit,Le Temps de Viellier, her subjects become
portraits of old age, a reality in which oftentimes the
physical shell houses a youthful mind. This is exem-FRANCE, PHOTOGRAPHY IN