Philippe Gras

Biography of Philippe Gras by Daniel Sauvaget.

Philippe Gras became a professional photographer after his education at the École Supérieure des Arts Graphiques of Paris (École Estienne) ; he worked at the Georges Véron Studio and specialized in fashion photography. Simultaneously, from 1964, he devoted his nights to covering jazz and contemporary music concerts, theatre and modern dancing performances.

He soon got into a freelance photography career, collaborating with music magazines and several other periodicals. One of them is Actuel, a publication costudian of what is known as the « 1968 spirit » or « l'Art Vivant », situated on the edge of artistic creativity of the time. Far from being confined to a purely artistic universe, he covers political and social events. He is also passionate for new cultural phenomenons such as the ever growing number of graffitis in subway hallways.

It could be said that his objective is sociologic and examines new behaviours as much as social and cultural innovations. Moreover, he explores themes of which the aestethics are considered too popular or crude, and which had never provoked any enthousiam like rock music, pinball machines illustrations, tattoos, hand-painted posters for movie theatres pediments ? Accustomed to musical and artistic reviews and models for album sleeves, he collaborated to many cultural events. He also worked on movie sets as a film-set photographer and executive assistant.

Co-author of several short-films, he engaged in visual experiments with another photgrapher, Horace. These experiments are montages of photographs, like « Transports en commun », a visual project on graffitis. Philippe Gras's work also includes extensive photo coverages of some asian countries, the constitution of a record on movie théâtres (for the french Ministry of Cultural Affairs), and several books. A number of tributes were paid to him after he died : a radio show on France-Culture (april 2008), and an exhibition at the Cité de la Musique (septembre 2008).