Florence Henri

Florence Henri (1893-1982) was a central figure at the Bauhaus and an active photographer in the decade before World War II. Produced on the occasion of a major exhibition of Henri¿s photographs at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, this book provides a complete account of her life, while focusing on the photographs she made between 1927 and 1940 as a member of the avant-garde community. All of Henri¿s notable self-portraits and still lifes from this period are included, while her working life is made accessible with lesser-known portraits from her circle of contemporaries, photomontages, collages, and documentary work made in Paris and Rome.Henri¿s experiments in abstraction and composition continue to provide inspiration for contemporary artists and designers. With essays by Cristina Zelich, curator of the Jeu de Paume exhibition, and Susan Kismaric, former curator of photographer at the Museum of Modern Art. Alongside the biographical research and text by Giovanni Battista Martini, this book testifies to the vitality of Henri¿s contribution to the story of photography.

With Florence Henri¿s photos, photographic practice enters a new phase—the scope of which would have been unimaginable before today. Above and beyond the precise and exact documentary composition of these highly defined photos, [her study of] the effects of light is tackled not only through abstract photograms, but also in photos of real-life subjects… —László Moholy-Nagy

Florence Henri went through the twentieth century as a forerunner, always and only obeying her own free, inventive spirit. An artist to the core, she masterfully and lucidly adopted expressive techniques and processes which could create representations that went beyond the obvious. —Giovanni Battista Martini, curator of the Florence Henri Archive