Philippe Robert

Philippe Robert (born June 24, 1953) is a French photographer.

His work includes portraits, fashion, and advertising photos.

Philippe Robert was born in Lille and graduated from the Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris (Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques - IDHEC, 1979 cohort) where he had Henri Alekan as one of his teachers.

During his studies he started to work for French television on the television show of Jean-Christophe Averty and on Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, directed by Giorgio Strehler at Paris National Opera.

After graduating from IDHEC, he enrolled at UCLA Film School and did an internship on Postman always rings twice directed by Bob Rafelson and starring Jack Nicholson.

From 1981 to 1986, Philippe Robert worked between Europe and The United States on a French television show dedicated to the cinema – Etoiles et Toiles, produced by Frédéric Mitterrand (the future French Minister of Culture and Communication).

During this early stage of his career, he met French TV figures (Maurice Dugowson, Raoul Sangla, Jean-Pierre Spiero) but also American movie makers who would have an important influence on his photographic style (Samuel Fuller, Sam Peckinpah, David Lynch, Ridley Scott ...).

At that time he also started to make his first pictures shooting people that he met.

He took advantage of his acquaintances with photographers close to the cinema to improve his skills, among them André Kertész.

Thanks to the journalist Philippe Garnier working for Libération and the future movie-maker Olivier Assayas working at this time for Cahiers du Cinéma, Philippe Robert met Tom Waits, who was about to release his album One from Heart (and Crystal Gayle), the original soundtrack of the Francis Ford Coppola movie of the same title (1982) and around that time he took a series of photographs of the musician.

In 1984, he assisted the photographer during his last series "New Distortions", shot in Hotel Esmeralda in Paris where Kertész made the original "Distortions" series (1933).

During this session, the master of photography, André Kertész, aged 90, known for his sense of humor, also made several distorted photos of his female model and young assistant, Philippe Robert.

Waits introduced Robert to Bob Guccione Jr. who would later lunch Spin magazine and publish Philippe Robert’s Tom Waits series in the September 1987 issue.

This first publication opened the door to Robert to publish his work in American magazines such as LA Weekly, Interview Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and New York Times Magazine.

From that time Philippe Robert dedicated himself exclusively to photography.

In 1987, he set up The Murder Ink production company with his friends Jean-Maue Ooghe (the television producer of the Tour de France for France Television since 1997) and Philippe Sikirdji.

Thanks to Lionel Cros, a French fashion designer and image-maker, he discovered "la Haute Couture" and started to provide fashion images for French fashion magazines and their European editions.

As he started to work as a fashion photographer, Philippe Robert met French major fashion photography figures.

In 1990, while shooting his first series for the Italian Harper's Bazaar, he shared the magazine's studio with Guy Bourdin.

In October 1990, Philippe Robert photographed German ELLE cover.

A Russian model, Ludmila Isaieva, was chosen for this historic cover of the first issue after German reunification.

Top-models like Carla Bruni, French actresses such as Sophie Marceau, Mathilda May and singers, Lio and Sylvie Vartan posed for him in Lionel Cros outfits.

Béatrice Dalle posed in Azzedine Alaïa.

For Thierry Mugler, he shot top-models and his muses such as Brandi Quiñones, Helena Christensen, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, first in the outfits from Mugler's show in Palais de Tokyo in what they would later wear in George Michael's "Too Funky" video-clip directed by Thierry Mugler.

This began for Philippe Robert a long and intense period of artistic creativity.

Philippe Robert made his name in the beginning of 1990 with his photographs of self-confident women, women who are comfortable wearing outfits of fashion designers who undress them while dressing them.

Although together with Jean-Baptiste Mondino and Stephane Sednaoui he is one of the French photographers who brought "erotic touch" to the fashion photography, he said at the beginning of his career that his main ambition was to catch his models' beauty and individuality and not to create shock images.

His photographs are minimalistic.

As does Richard Avedon that Robert considers as a master, he shots in an empty studio.

For over 10 years he was assisted by Laurent Caron who created his own production company IOROPE, in the early 2000s.

True to his education and artistic background, Robert collaborated in multiplies multiple ways that mixed fashion, movie and music.

He contributed photographs for widely diverse publications.

These included popular fashion magazines (ELLE, Harper's Bazaar, Marie-Claire ...); specialized press (Max : French and Italian editions, Paris Match, Photo, VSD ...); luxury magazines (Ritz ...); ambitious hype magazines (City International Magazine, Sans Nom – ancestor of Citizen K) and occasionally trash press (Loaded).

Since the beginning of the 2000s, the photographer has experimented new photographic tools, including shooting with disposable cameras or mobile phones.

Applying image treatment software to some of these photos that can be printed in postcard size, he has reconnected with his experiences while working with André Kertész.

New and more intimate subjects have appeared in his work: Paris and Île Saint-Louis where he lives, his son, nature....

From the mid-2000s, Philippe Robert has regularly exhibited his work in galleries and photography festivals that promotes fashion photography in Europe and The United States.

Since 2005, he is regularly exhibited at the Cannes International Fashion Photography Festival that show large size photos in the city sites such as La Croisette, Casino Palm Beach and the Hôtel Martinez.

Since 2008, he has worked with Art Photo Expo, a gallery known for its participation to Art Basel Miami Beach (2007, and 2008, editions) and who shows his works in New York and Miami and online.

Some of his photographs can be seen in this gallery catalog, among major fashion photographers works.