LAURE ALBIN GUILLOT

Laure Albin Guillot was a French photographer, known for her portraits of Parisian celebrities. Guillot attended the Lycée Molière in Paris, before establishing her own studio at her home on Rue de Ranelagh. In 1922, she published her first fashion photographs in French Vogue. From 1924 onwards, her work was regularly exhibited at the Salon International de Photographie, and she held her first solo exhibition at the Paris Salon d’Automne in 1925. After her husband died in 1929, Guillot moved to Boulevard to Beauséjour, where she received several notable celebrities including Paul Valéry (1871-1945), Colette (1873-1954) and Jean Cocteau (1889-1963). 

 

In 1931, Guillot was the first photographer to experiment with ‘micrographie’; producing decorative microscopic images that combined science with visual art. Later in the 1930s, Guillot also began combining photography with literature; illustrating Paul Valéry’s Narcisse, and publishing more works during the German occupation of France (1940-1944). Guillot continued to work as a portraitist in her studio on Boulevard du Séjour after the Second World War, until she retired in 1956. She died in Paris on 22nd February 1962. Her studio archive, comprising of 52,000 negatives and 20,000 prints, now belongs to the city of Paris.