Seealso:Abstraction; Modernism; Photo Secession;
Photo Secessionists; Solarization; Sommer, Freder-
ick; Stieglitz, Alfred
Biography
Born in San Francisco, California, 16 October 1879.
Attended boarding school and toured Europe. Studied
with Photo-Secessionist Frank Eugene in New York
and met Alfred Stieglitz, New York, 1905. Opened a
photography studio, San Francisco, California, 1906.
Employed as the official photographer for the New
York Theatre Guild, 1919–1927; photographed for
Vanity Fair,Harper’s Bazaar, andVogue; collaborated
on advertisements with E. McKnight Kauffer for Shell
Oil, the British Postal Service, and Charnaux Corset
Company; designed gateway to the British Pavilion for
the Paris Exposition, 1937. Substantial collections re-
side at at the International Museum of Photography
and Film at the George Eastman House, Rochester,
New York, the Center for Creative Photography, Tuc-
son, Arizona, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles,
California, and the Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland,
California. Died in London and was buried in Middle-
ton Cheney, England, 8 May 1945.
Individual Exhibitions
1916 Francis Bruguiere; Paul Elder Art Room, San Fran- cisco, California 1927 Photographs and Paintings by Francis Bruguiere; The
Art Center, New York, New York
1929 Photographic Designs by Francis Bruguiere; The War- ren Gallery, London, England 1977 Bruguiere:Announcing a Witkin Gallery Portfolio; The
Witkin Gallery, New York, New York
Group Exhibitions
1910 International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography; Al-
bright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York
1915 Pan-Pacific International Exposition; San Francisco,
California
1929 Film und Foto; Deutsche Werkbund, Stuttgart, Ger-
many
1933 Francis Bruguie`re in Collaboration with E. McKnight
Kauffer; Lund, Humphries Galleries, London, England
1937 Photography 1839–1937; Museum of Modern Art,
New York, New York
1960 The Sense of Abstraction in Contemporary Photogra-
phy; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
1976 Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection; Art Insti-
tute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
1979 Photography Rediscovered: American Photographs,
1900–1930; Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York, New York; and The Art Institute of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois
1981 Cubism and American Photography, 1910–1930; Ster-
ling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown,
Massachusetts, and traveling
1997 The Friends of Anne Brigman: Bay Area Pictorialists,
1900–1925; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Bar-
bara, California, and travelingSelected Works
Portrait of Frank Eugene, 1905
A Portrait, Camera Work, 1916
Thomas Wilfred’s Color Organ Projections, 1922
Stage Model for Norman Bel Geddes’s set design for The
Divine Comedy, c. 1924
The Way, series, 1923–1925
Cut Paper Abstractions, series, c. 1927
Light Rhythms, series, 1930
Advertisement by E. McKnight Kauffer and Bruguie`re for
Charnaux Corset Company, c. 1932Further Reading
Benedict, Burton.Anthropology of a World’s Fair: San
Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition of
1915. Berkeley, CA: Lowie Museum of Anthropology
and Scholar Press, 1985.
Bruguie`re, Francis.San Francisco. San Francisco, CA: H.S.
Crocker, Co., 1918.
Bruguie`re, Francis, and Oswell Blaketon.Few Are Chosen:
Studies in the Theatrical Lighting of Life’s Theatre. Lon-
don: Eric Partridge Ltd. at the Scholartis Press, 1931.
Enyeart, James.Bruguie`re: His Photographs and His Life.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
Enyeart, James L. With reminiscence by Rosalinde Fuller.
Bruguiere: Announcing a Witkin Gallery Portfolio. New
York: Witkin Gallery, 1977.
Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. ‘‘Mysticism, Romanticism,
and the Fourth Dimension.’’ InThe Spiritual in Art:
Abstract Painting, 1890–1985. Organized by Maurice
Tuchman and edited by Edward Weisberger. Los
Angeles, CA: Abbeville Press, 1986.
Homer, Willian Innes.Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Seces-
sion. Boston: New York Graphic Society, and Little,
Brown and Company, 1983.
Moritz, William. ‘‘Abstract Film and Color Music.’’ InThe
Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 1890–1985. Orga-
nized by Maurice Tuchman and edited by Edward Weis-
berger. Los Angeles, CA: Abbeville Press, 1986.
Sieveking, Lancelot de Giberne.Beyond this Point. London:
Duckworth, 1929.
Sterling, George.The Evanescent City. San Francisco, CA:
A.M. Robertson, 1915.
Young, Stark. ‘‘The Color Organ.’’Theatre Arts Magazine
6 (January 1922): 20–32.
Vandamm, Florence.The Vandamm Collection: Theater
Photographs from the Studios of Florence Vandamm and
Francis Joseph Bruguie`re from 1915–1960 in the New
York Public Library, Library and Museum of Performing
Arts. Teaneck, NJ: Somerset House, 1980.BRUGUIE`RE, FRANCIS JOSEPH