--- description: A Parisian museum looks back at Florence Henri's impressive career as a surrealist photographer title: Meet Florence Henri, One of Photography's Unsung Influencers image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf47a26705802a821/69877ae455a8593e7da855b2/florencehenri_14_portraitcompositioncora.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/) ## LightBox Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Meet Florence Henri, One of Photography's Unsung Influencers by [Carole Naggar](/author/carole-naggar/) ## Carole Naggar Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 23, 2015 9:00 AM CUT  Portrait Composition, Cora, 1931 Portrait Composition, Cora, 1931Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti by [Carole Naggar](/author/carole-naggar/) ## Carole Naggar Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 23, 2015 9:00 AM CUT “What I want above all,” Florence Henri said near the end of her long life, “is to compose the photograph as I do with painting. Volumes, lines, shadows and light have to obey my will and say what I want them to say. This happens under the strict control of composition, since I do not pretend to explain the world nor to explain my thoughts.” Henri began her artistic career as an abstract painter but, upon studying at the Bauhaus in Germany, turned to photography as what she perceived as the medium of the future. In 1929, just two years after leaving the Bauhaus, Henri’s Paris portrait studio became as well-known as that of Man Ray. She taught classes, and her students included future luminaries such as Gisèle Freund and Lisette Model Early on, influenced by Constructivism and Cubism, Henri started experimenting with mirrors as a way to add more perspectives to her imagery. First she used them simply as reflections for her portraits and self-portraits, then gave them a much more central role. Her self-portrait with spheres, where she is reflected both by a mirror and by metal spheres, quickly became a famous modernist landmark. Henri’s photographs became part of seminal international exhibitions, such as _Fotografie der Gegenwart_ (Contemporary Photography, 1929), _Film Und Foto_ (Film and Photo, 1929) and _Das Lichtbild_ (The Photograph, 1931). At that time, due to Henri’s fame in Europe, she became influential in the field: photographer Ilse Bing, for instance, explained that she wanted to settle in Paris because Florence Henri worked there and she felt close to her ideas. Now, Henri’s contributions to the field are, for the most part, unknown to the larger public. The new exhibition of Henri’s work, _Mirror of the Avant Gardes_ at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris, attempts to remedy this omission by bringing together 130 vintage prints from the Florence Henri Archive in Genova, Italy, as well as little-known publications and documents related to the artist’s life and work. The accompanying catalogue includes numerous documents from the period as well as reproductions of works by other artists of the time, drawing parallels and comparisons to Henri’s work and placing it in context. Henri’s wide-ranging work explores the mechanics of perception. They include numerous portraits of her artist friends (among them Jean Arp, Petra Van Doesburg, Sonia Delaunay, Wassili Kandinsky Fernand Léger, and Margarete Schall). There are also still lifes, mostly of industrial objects; abstract compositions; advertising photos (for products from Lanvin, Columbia, Ambre Solaire, and others); numerous self-portraits; sensual female nudes that often include natural elements such as shells or hyacinths (many were published as a book, _Femmes Nues_ in 1935); and street photographs taken in Rome, Paris and Brittany. There is also an exceptional _Vitrines_ series, layered reflections from shop windows, as well as photomontages made from her own cut-up photographs of Roman architectural details. Henri often uses deep shadows that bisect and fragment the image. She also explores multiple exposures or combines several negatives to obtain dynamic juxtapositions. In a recent conversation, The show’s curator Cristina Zelich remarked that an “interesting trait is her work method of exhausting all the composition possibilities offered by a small number of natural or industrial objects. Her use of collage is original; it differs from that of the Surrealists, because for her it is not about creating a link with the unconscious, but about organizing in different patterns the reality that she photographs with her camera.” The thread that weaves all these diverse subjects together is Henri’s designing eye, conditioned by her sensitivity to geometric abstract painting and the innovations of the _New Vision_ photography as defined by her mentor Moholy-Nagy. Thanks to thoughtful exhibitions such as _Mirror of the Avant Gardes_, our knowledge of this complex period, which has been dubbed “The Second Birth of Photography,” becomes deeper and more nuanced, with a greater appreciation for the innovative work that can be viewed as having at times transcended today’s visual experiments. **_Florence Henri_**_‘s retrospective_ [Mirror of the Avant Gardes](http://www.jeudepaume.org/index.php?page=article&idArt=2207 "undefined") _at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris, France runs until May 17, 2015._ **_Carole Naggar_** _is a photo historian, poet and regular contributor to LightBox._  Composition with still life, 1931 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Composition, 1928 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Composition, 1928 Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Jeanne Lanvin, 1929 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Tailor’s mannequin, 1930-1931 Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Window, 1929 Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Self portrait, 1928 Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Double portrait, 1927-1928 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Composition With Still Life, 1929 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Composition with still life, 1931 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Woman with cards, 1930 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Robert Delaunay, circa 1935 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Portrait Composition, Cora, 1931 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Portrait Composition, Tulia Kaiser, circa 1930 Courtesy of Galleria Martini & Ronchetti, Centre Pompidou, Mnam-Cci, Dist. Rmn-Grand Palais / Georges Meguerditchian  Fernand Léger, 1934 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Composition With Still Life, circa 1933 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Composition, The Glory That was Greece, circa 1933 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Brittany, 1937-1940 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti  Self Portrait, 1938 Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3675305/florence-henri-jeu-de-paume/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3675305/florence-henri-jeu-de-paume/"},"headline":"Meet Florence Henri, One of Photography's Unsung Influencers","datePublished":"2015-02-23T09:00:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:41:42.757Z","description":"A Parisian museum looks back at Florence Henri's impressive career as a surrealist photographer","url":"https://time.com/3675305/florence-henri-jeu-de-paume/","keywords":["LightBox","photography","On Our Radar"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf47a26705802a821/69877ae455a8593e7da855b2/florencehenri_14_portraitcompositioncora.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Carole Naggar","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/carole-naggar/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf47a26705802a821/69877ae455a8593e7da855b2/florencehenri_14_portraitcompositioncora.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"florence-henri-surrealism-photo-14","caption":"Florence Henri exhibition at Jeu de Paume Paris","creditText":"Courtesy Archives Florence Henri, Gênes Florence Henri / Galleria Martini & Ronchetti","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-lightbox/","name":"LightBox"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3675305/florence-henri-jeu-de-paume/","name":"Meet Florence Henri, One of Photography's Unsung Influencers"}}]}] ```