Robert DELPIRE

Born in 1928 in France. Lives and works in France.
Delpire & Co 
Destined for a medical career but irrevocably attracted to art, 23 year-old Robert Delpire started Neuf, an art magazine for doctors, including such authors as Breton, Prévert, Miller, Picasso, Michaux and Sartre. In the early 1950s he became the publisher of future photography legends like Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Doisneau, Lartigue and Bischof. And in 1958 he published Robert Frank's mythic The Americans.
Robert Delpire has won the Arts Graphiques gold medal and the Nadar prize several times. He created the graphic image for the magazine L'Oeil in 1955 and was its art director for eight years.
In the early 1960s he opened a gallery where he exhibited Smith, Koudelka, Kühn, Sander, Michals and Bourdin, and the advertising agency he started as a part of the Advico group dealt with many international accounts. As creative director he was twice awarded the Grand Prix de la Publicité.
The films he has produced include Corps Profond directed by Lalou & Barrère, William Klein’s Cassius le Grand and Who Are You, Polly Magoo?, winner of the Jean Vigo prize in 1967. He has also directed many advertising films and a 30-minute TV film on the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson.
In July 1982, in conjunction with Minister of Culture Jack Lang, he founded the National Photography Centre (CNP). Here he began publishing Photo Poche, the first paperback photography series; directed television programmes – Une minute pour une image and Contacts; and produced films. Over 150 of his theme exhibitions, among them Identités, Botanica and Vanités and monographic shows – Irving Penn, Robert Frank, William Klein, etc. – toured the world.
In 1996 he decided to leave the CNP and signed a co-production contract with the publishing house Nathan which took over Photo Poche, now the world's top-selling photography series (a collaboration sealed by an extensive programme of publications – Maestro, Essentiellement, Naturalia) – and which Robert Delpire continued to head until its most recent publisher, Actes Sud, took over in 2004. As art director for the Fait & Cause gallery which specialises in social issues, he organised and designed exhibitions for leading museums (Sao Paulo, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, the Helsinki Museum and the Luxembourg in Paris where Earth from the Air was an unprecedented success in the history of photography). The most recent exhibition was an exhaustive retrospective of Henri Cartier-Bresson at the French National Library in 2003, which subsequently toured the world.
Robert Delpire is a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters.
 
  • Institutional partners

    • République Française
    • Région Provence Alpes Côté d'Azur
    • Département des Bouches du Rhône
    • Arles
    • Le Centre des monuments nationaux est heureux de soutenir les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles en accueillant des expositions dans l’abbaye de Montmajour
  • Main partners

    • Fondation LUMA
    • BMW
    • SNCF
    • Kering
  • Media partners

    • Arte
    • Lci
    • Konbini
    • Le Point
    • Madame Figaro
    • France Culture