Lucien Lorelle

Lucien Lorelle (December 29, 1894 – February 26, 1968) was a French portraitist, publicist, humanist photographer, author, painter, a member of Le Groupe des XV and founder of the photography company Central Color.
Biography.
Lucien Lorelle, was born on December 29, in 1894.
After having voluntarily enlisted, he served in the Infantry and then in the Air Force. He received the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d'honneur.
In 1920 Lorelle found work as the administrator of the Manuel brothers’ art portrait studio, but did not practice photography.
Professional and artistic photographer.
In 1927, having taught himself to use a camera, with his brother-in-law Marcel Amson he founded a portrait business, the Studio Lorelle, 47 Boulevard Berthier, Paris, asking Czech Jaroslav Rössler in December to join the enterprise as an advertising photographer just as the latter had planned to migrate to the United States. The German photographer Erna Wagner-Hehmke was also employed there. He sold the studio to Marcel Amson in 1932.
Lorelle opened his own studio in 1935 in rue Lincoln to specialise in advertising photography, and initiated his own Surrealist artistic work incorporating photomontage and collage and frequently the subject of the female nude. When Jean Mauclair opened cinema Studio 28 Lorelle created the poster, and about fifty surrealist images which he presented as a slide show during the intermission of the screening of Luis Buñuel's 1929 Surrealist masterpiece "Un Chien Andalou" ('An Andalusian Dog').
Advertising campaigns for which he was commissioned included those for L'Oréal's Ambre Solaire, BP, Chanel, Cinzano, Galeries Lafayette (with Cassandre), L'Oreal, Perrier, Pernod (including some posters with Jean Carlu), Philips, SNCF, Teppaz, Winston and Shell. Especially well-known is the advertising Lorelle produced at the end of the 1940s for which the model Suzy Bastide became "Miss Ambre Solaire"; a life-size cut-out of her bikini-clad and tanned body stood at the entrance of the shops and pharmacies of French seaside resorts until the end of the 50s. One of these point-of-sale figurines was lent by L'Oréal to Jean (Yann) Dieuzaide for his Lucien Lorelle tribute exhibition of 1996. Bastide was also the model for some of Lorelle's Surrealist nudes.
A number of artists and celebrities of his time were photographed by Lorelle, including Annabella (1930), Marie Glory (c.1930), Martine Carol, Dominique Wilms, Micheline Presle, Danielle Darrieux, Albert Préjean, Jacqueline Huet, Jean Cocteau, Gérard Philipe, Madeleine Robinson, Madeleine Sologne, Serge Reggiani, Jean Marais, Michel Simon, Jean Gabin, and Michel Galabru.
Lorelle's contributions to the industry were significant; in March 1946, with others, Lorelle founded the professional association Le Groupe des XV, and in 1952 he formed the Paris company Central Color, the first professional colour laboratory in France, now known as Central Dupon Images. He turned it over to his daughter Françoise Gallois, who became president of the Central Color Group, and who married former Brigadier General, novelist and politician, Pierre Gallois. The company also operated in Greenburgh, New York from 1983 to 2001, owned and operated by Lorelle's grandson François Gallois.
Surrealist photographer.
From the late 40s Lorelle experimented with Surrealism, especially in his nude studies, and the imagery was sometimes was reused in advertising, like his "Femme en morceaux" in which a statue of a woman lies broken, which was used in a 1948 magazine promotion for Odorono deodorant with the caption; "Un souffle suffit à renverser l'idole" ("One sniff is enough to topple the idol.") His surrealist artistic photography was often combined with drawing, often through an experimental reworking of negatives treated as cliché-verre. He made photomontage and would collage drawings with photographs and write or paint on photographic prints
Painter, illustrator.
From 1920 until 1957, photography occupied most of his time, but though he was recognised as a photographer, Lorelle aspired to draw and paint. His literary-inspired works often include superimposed drawings. . Aside from the large number of pen drawings in his personal archives are a few of his paintings that he had not destroyed. He regularly participated as an artist and sometimes as President at major exhibitions.
Author.
After 1958 Lorelle devoted himself to writing books on colour photography and photography of the nude, with translations into German, English and Spanish and published by Paul Montel. His lecture The ABC of photography was published by Linguaphone.
Legacy.
On February 26, 1968 Lucien Lorelle died in Megève, leaving a body of photographic negatives, paintings, drawings, montages and innumerable texts as well as many books dealing with photography in its technical and artistic aspects.