GISELE FREUND

Gisèle Freund was born in Berlin in 1908 and was celebrated for her unique early colour photographic portraits. Notable sitters included Man Ray (1890-1976), Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Le Corbusier (1887-1965), Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979), Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), André Breton (1896-1966), Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) and Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). She fled Nazi Germany and settled in Paris in the 1930s, studying at the Sorbonne and writing her thesis on photography. She travelled worldwide, photographing for Time and Life magazine and became the only female founding member of Magnum.