We are honored to present an online memorial exhibition for the celebrated French artist Denis Brihat, who passed away last month at the age of 96 in Bonnieux in the Luberon region of Provence, where he had lived for over sixty years.
A pioneering figure in the history of photography, Brihat was one of the first to advocate for photography to be recognized as an essential form of artistic expression in its own right. On the hard terrain of the Plateau des Claparèdes, he built a house, cultivated a garden, and created extraordinary images, prints, and techniques that have left an indelible impact on the medium. Surrounded by nature, Brihat enjoyed solitude and contemplation. Nature became the foundation of his life and a source of spirituality; it also offered him a continuous study of forms. Brihat was especially fascinated with plants and flora, in particular, the flowers, trees, and vegetables found around his home in Provence and in his garden, which he referred to as Eden, an earthly paradise. His exceptional eye endowed him with the power to draw beauty from the quotidian, often overlooked objects like his beloved onions, while his remarkable roses, orchids, and gardenias exhibit a palpable sensuality in both the intimacy of their composition and the exquisite texture of the prints.
In his darkroom, Brihat conducted groundbreaking experiments in photography and printmaking, resulting in singular stylistic and technical achievements. His aim was to create “photographic paintings.”
A master printer, he invented a technique of toning traditional black-and-white darkroom prints with the salts of gold, iron, selenium, vanadium, and uranium, among other metals. The reaction of these metals with the silver salts in the emulsion produced hues that are original, one-of-a-kind, and highly archival, in contrast to traditional analog color printmaking. The resulting prints exude a vividness and a luminosity that are unequaled in color photography. He also forged new paths in the field of photographic engraving, adapting a 19th-century practice to develop a new technique known as grignotage (literally, "nibbling" or "whittling away") that etched his images, with unusual permanence, hue, and texture, directly into the paper. Brihat’s momentous body of work teaches us how to see and appreciate nature; they form an Eden of their own, gifted to us by a great artist.
Brihat was one of the founders of the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie festival in Arles, with Lucien Clergue. He was selected by John Szarkowski in 1967 to be one of the first French photographers exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, alongside his friends Jean-Pierre Sudre and Pierre Cordier. In 1987, he was awarded the Grand Prix de la Photographie de la Ville de Paris.
Today, Brihat’s photographs can be found in the collections of public and private institutions worldwide, including MoMA; the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Musée des Beaux Arts, Neuchâtel; the Musée Cantini, Marseille; and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Centre Pompidou, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, and National Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris.
