Edouard Boubat

Decause I know war… because I know the horror, I don’t want to add to it… After the war, we felt the need to celebrate life, and for me photography was the means to achieve this.”

– Edouard Boubat

Edouard Boubat (1923 – 1999) was a French art photographer. Boubat was born in Montmartre, Paris. He studied typography and graphic arts at the Ecole Estienne, and then worked for a printing company before becoming a photographer after WWII. As the son of an army chef, he heard many tales of the Great War, in which his father served as a cook on the front lines and was wounded three times. In 1938, Boubat attended the École Estienne, where he studied to become a photo-engraver, but in 1943, he was called up to serve two years of compulsory labor in a factory in Leipzig, Germany. Upon his return to Paris in 1946, Boubat sold his six-volume dictionary to fund the purchase of his first camera, a 6×6 Rolleicord.

He took his first photograph in 1946 and was awarded the Kodak Prize the following year. This photograph was taken in the Jardin du Luxembourg and titled, “Little Girl with Dead Leaves”. The following year, at the age of 24, Boubat exhibited the picture at the Salon International de la Photographie organized by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and was awarded the Kodak Prize. It was an amazing start to his career. The same year that he bought the Rolleicord Boubat met his future wife, Lella, of whom he took some of the most beautiful and emblematic photographs of the 20th century.
In 1950, Boubat’s work was initially published by the Swiss magazine Caméra. Soon after, he became acquainted with the artistic director of the French magazine Realités. From then on, Boubat traveled the world for the prestigious magazine. His assignments often took him to poor and desolate regions, but Boubat still managed to capture only love and beauty. His special gift as a photojournalist was finding the common thread that linked the everyday life of people everywhere. For Boubat, photography meant meeting his fellow man. He loved to photograph humanity; his images bear witness to the specific relationship he had with his subjects.”

He travelled the world for the magazine Réalités. In 1968, Boubat left Realités magazine, but continued to work on an independent basis. He Boubat died in 1999 in Paris, leaving behind a remarkable collection of photography. Public collections that hold his work include Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Published on March 6, 2021
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