Collection Online as of March 27, 2023
1916
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Photogravure
Museum Appropriation 1995.199.48.i
Francis Bruguière
Francis Bruguière American, 1879-1945
Born into a wealthy San Francisco banking family, Francis Bruguière studied painting in Europe. He developed an interest in photography after meeting Alfred Stieglitz and Frank Eugene during a 1905 trip to New York, where he remained to study with Eugene and became a member of the Photo-Secession. In 1906 Bruguière returned to San Francisco and opened a photography studio. Thirteen years later he was back in New York to begin work as a commercial photographer for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and the Theatre Guild.
During the 1920s Bruguière experimented with "light abstractions" -- images filled with abstract patterns of light and shade made from dramatically lit cut-paper designs. In 1929 his photographs were included in the Film und Foto exhibition in Stuttgart, a show featuring the work of the most experimental and progressive photographers. The following year he collaborated with Oswell Blakeston, a writer and film critic, to produce an abstract film, Light Rhythms. Moving to England in 1928, Bruguière worked in advertising and continued his photographic experiments with light and multiple exposures. He retired from photography in 1940. M.M.