Untitled, Woman next to a car, 1956

Georges Dambier  

Born in Paris in 1925, Georges Dambier was during the War, the pupil of the famous painter and poster artist Paul Colin who taught him graphic design and gave him a taste for decoration, fashion, pretty women and Parisian life. After the Liberation, he became the assistant of Willy Rizzo, a talented photographer with whom he discovered a new art, of which he soon learned to master the subtleties and more particularly the use of light. In post-war Paris, aged 20, Georges Dambier photographs the nightlife and social celebrations now in full explosion and is the witness of the life of "All-Paris", its celebrities, its places to fashion, its brilliant parties. Photos of Rita Hayworth negotiated for a permanent position as reporter-photographer at France Dimanche will launch her professional career. Although passionate about current events, the young photographer nevertheless prefers to capture the glamor, and capture life in all its brilliance, its refinement. His taste for graphics and his ability to recreate reality with rare elegance lead him to fashion photography. In 1952, he was noticed by Hélène Lazareff, founder of Elle, who gave him a chance and published her first fashion report. It is with his agreement and his support that he launched the avant-garde concept of "tourist-photographer". It is a question of leaving with a complete team (models, fashion editor, hairdresser, stylist…) to photograph Haute Couture models in resorts such as Italy, Morocco, Corsica, Yugoslavia, Brazil. Georges Dambier captures women dressed in magnificent dresses in an original setting: in the middle of the desert, in a village market, on a boat and above all in the bustle of this Paris that he adores. He is one of the first in France to bring models out of the studios and he does not hesitate to free models from fixed poses and stereotypical attitudes, while nevertheless defending a demanding execution. At the start of the 1950s, Georges Dambier opened his own studio. Freelance, he still works for Elle but also for the main fashion magazines (Vogue, Marie France, the Express and connects the major advertising campaigns. He also produces show posters and record covers and all the show business of the 1960s thus passed his goal. In 1964, Georges Dambier embarked on a very personal project and created Twenty, a monthly for young people and dedicated to fashion and culture, but this ambitious adventure would last only two years. His friend Maurice Siegel called on him in 1976 and together they created VSD for which Georges Dambier was entrusted with the artistic direction and produced the famous logo. At the end of the 80s, Georges Dambier left the press and joined his family home in the Périgord to make it a charming hotel and give free rein to his passion for decoration, where he died in 2011.