Сообщение 1950s Paris Nightlife in pictures by Frank Horvat появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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The frivolous nightlife of Paris of the 1950s (and other decades) always attracted brilliant photographers. Frank Horvat was one of them. In 1956, he photographed prostitutes, strippers, and visitors to a nightclub in the Pigalle square area.
“Robert Doisneau and other humanist photographers greatly romanticized 1950s Paris. But the city did not look like their pictures, – Horvat recalls. – It was poor and dilapidated. Pigalle square was in the center of all poems and songs, but this place didn’t look very pleasant. It was shabby and dirty. Although you can take excellent photos.”
Oldics has published some peculiar photos of the cities of the 1950s. Some bright pictures of the post-war New York. The Soviet lifestyle in the 1950s Moscow, or the noteworthy Vancouver photos (1950s-1960s). You may have seen even some bizarre photographs of the Dior models in Moscow in 1959. Time has come to shed light on the Paris of the 1950s.
Who was Frank Horvat
Frank Horvat was born in 1928 in Opatija (then Italy, nowadays – the territory of Croatia). At the age of fifteen, he traded his collection of postage stamps for a 35mm Retinamat camera. In Horvat moved to Lugano, Switzerland. Then, in the late 1940s, he lived in Milan, studied at the Brera Academy of Arts.
He first visited the French capital in 1950. During the short business trip (taking some advertising photoshoots), Frank Horvat met well-known photographers Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. His prompt meeting with those prominent cameramen meant a lot for a young Horvat. He switched to the Leica camera and traveled to Pakistan and India, taking photos and looking for a unique shooting style.
Moving to Paris in the 1950s
In 1956 Horvat moved to Paris. He was 28 years old, and his reportage photographs hit the Italian magazine Epoca pages in 1951, Paris Match, Life and Picture Post. Soon after his moval to Paris, a New York-based agency commissioned him to photograph a “sexy” story about the ill-famed Parisian nightlife. The photographer happily accepted the task because he needed money.
Horvat went to Pigalle Square, on the border of the 9th and 18th districts. This place was a kind of red-light district in Paris. It was famous for sex shops and frivolous adult entertainment venues, including the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret. Here, at the Pigalle, there was once the studio of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. It was a place where Vincent Van Gogh, Andre Breton, and Pablo Picasso lived.
The difficulties of the entrance
Horvat, unsurprisingly, couldn’t enter any of the nightlife locations with his camera. The only place he could infiltrate to was the Le Sphinx club. It wasn’t the largest and not the most prestigious strip club, named after the legendary Parisian brothel. Nonetheless, this place was well-known. Brassai and Man Ray had their brilliant photoshoots here in the 1930s, Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart visited it, and Marlene Dietrich met Madeleine Solange.
The doorman of the Le Sphinx let Frank Horvat into the club for 5,000 francs. The photographer had fifteen minutes only, as his presence provoked a protest from the girls. However, Horvat turned out to be a quick photographer and, by that time, had managed to shoot five films. One of the most famous photographs taken that night (below) took the Vogue magazine’s whole spread.
The photographer stayed in France and documented life in the capital, but this is a completely different story. And in this collection, “Paris for tourists” or “Paris at night” 1950s through the lens of Frank Horvat. Most of the pictures are from the Le Sphinx club, but there are also a few pictures from the rue Saint-Denis.
Read more: 50 amazing and bizarre photos
1950s Paris Nightlife in pictures by Frank Horvat
“I don’t know if he is a businessman or a tourist, but the main thing is that he is alone and drinks champagne,” Horvat said about that photo. – It doesn’t look like the character is having a great time, but he “made” this shot. The eerie painting on the wall behind the visitor contributes to the magic of the stilled moment. When the stripper walked by, her naked body looked like a marble sculpture in the light of the lamps. It was not I who made it, but it was given to me. I can never repeat it again, even if someone pays me a million pounds. “
A selfie with a strip dancer at the Le Sphinx club
Dance for a business traveler
A club scene at the Pigalle Square
Her body looked like a marble statue
Cabaret Lido spectator
Inside of the Le Sphinx club
Le Sphinx dancer, Paris
Le Sphinx dancers
A prostitute in the street of Paris, the 1950s
Some bar at the Pigalle Square
The night performance for the US tourists
The performance at the Le Sphinx, Paris, 1950s
The police cab takes a prostitute away
This doorman was lucky on that night. He received 5000 franks for letting Frank Horvat into the club
Working women at Saint-Denis street
Сообщение 1950s Paris Nightlife in pictures by Frank Horvat появились сначала на Old Pictures.
]]>Сообщение Vintage photos of Paris in the 1890s by Emile Zola появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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It looks like Emile Zola knew how to hold in his hands, not only a pen but also a camera. Also, we hope that all Oldpics visitors know that Emile Zola was a genius writer. Now, let’s take a look at his vintage photos of Paris and decide if he was a tolerable photographer.
Emile Zola took most of these photographs in Paris at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He tried himself as a cameraman shortly after the 1899 World Exhibition was over. The one that brought the Eiffel Tower to Paris.
And yes, we know that Emile Zola, together with Alexandre Dumas, Guy de Maupassant, and other respected artists, signed a letter against its construction. He called on the Parisians “in the name of taste, in the name of French art, which is in danger, to protest against the construction in the heart of our capital the useless and ugly Eiffel Tower.” Nevertheless, the tower constantly appears in his photographs. Apparently, we have before us a classic case of “endure – amour.”
Emile Zola was in love with Paris
After returning home from exile in England, Zola again fell in love with Paris in all its manifestations. We remind you that he was in exile to avoid arrest after his scandalous letter “J’accuse …!” So Emile Zola focused his lens on random passers-by, his young wife, and two daughters, after all, on himself.
Emile Zola didn’t practice the pictorial photography genre as Leonard Misonne. He neither published his photos in the magazine of Alfred Stieglitz, who was constantly looking for the new photo talents during that historical period. Nonetheless, take a look at the selection of 25 excellent shots.
Read more: 100 most important pictures in history
World Fairy of 1899
The stairs to the Sacre-Coeur
The river Seine
The mud on the streets of Paris
That’s how Eiffel Tower was highlighted in the new 1900 year
One of the Train Station in Paris, the 1890s
Pedestrian bridge in Paris
Zola’s wife
Emile Zola with family
The writer’s dog
Zola didn’t like the idea of the Eiffel Tower construction. Although he took a lot of its photos
Writer and his wife
Autumn in Paris
Another photo of Paris by French novelist
Amazing view from the Eiffel Tower
A short rest during a bike trip
A ship in the waters of Sienne
A selfie by Zola
A famous Paris 1890s attraction
Сообщение Vintage photos of Paris in the 1890s by Emile Zola появились сначала на Old Pictures.
]]>Сообщение Gigantic French telescope, Paris, 1900 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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Gigantic French telescope is a noteworthy gem among other Oldpics vintage photos, taking to account how old it is. So, it’s the largest refractor telescope that people ever built. French engineers assembled this gigantic telescope for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900. Yes, an Eifel Tower appeared during this event too.
The telescope became the main object in the Palace of Optics. The focal length of the telescope was 57 meters, and the lens diameter was 1.25 meters.
The engineers designed this telescope to impress. Although, nobody extracted any practical use of it. Astronomers used it just several times for direct telescopic purposes. Astronomer Théophile Moreu observed the sunspots with its help. Charles Le Morvan photographed the moon through its lens. After the end of the exhibition, no one was willing to buy a gigantic telescope. Therefore, the telescope was ingloriously dismantled.
Сообщение Gigantic French telescope, Paris, 1900 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
]]>Сообщение First known photo (daguerreotype) of human. Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 1838 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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Try to find human on this daguerreotype.
Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 8 in the morning. This photo was made in 1838 and it`s for now the first known photo of human. It is a daguerreotype – an image recorder on a sheet of copper, coated with silver and developed by mercury fumes. It was made by an inventor Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (by whom daguerreotypes actually are named). Why morning street of Paris is so empty in these morning hour? To make this photo Daguerre would have to use an exposure for 10-15 minutes. But if you look on bottom left you’ll see a customer having his shoes polished by a bootblack.
Сообщение First known photo (daguerreotype) of human. Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 1838 появились сначала на Old Pictures.
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