Born in London and raised in Paris, John Stewart fought for the British in World War II, during which he was detained for three years by the Japanese. Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom he met by chance, encouraged him as an artist after seeing his portraits, taken on his first camera, of Picasso, Braque and Matisse. In 1951 in New York, he worked for Harper’s Bazaar in 1951, published in Fortune Magazine and various fashion magazines, and photographed famous figures such as Andy Warhol and Muhammad Ali. After providing technical support for the film The Bridge on the River Kwai,he often returned to capture Asian landscapes on film, before moving to France in 1965 and working for Vogue and Elle. In 1976, he abandoned fashion and advertising to devote himself to a personal study of photographic still lifes, which he pursued until the end of his life. Many exhibitions have been held in his honor across the globe.