Photographers - Part 10

 Henri Manuel

Henri Manuel (1874-1947) opened a portrait studio in Paris in 1900, quickly expanding to become the largest photographic studio in Paris.  From 1914 to 1944 he was the official photographer of the French government.  He is pictured above in 1944 at age 70.

He photographed people from the worlds of politics, art and sports and was also a pioneer in fashion photography.  He supplied photos of celebrities as well as risqué photos, male and female, to postcard publishers.  All these postcards have the mark "AN Paris" which stood for Alfred Noyer, who ran another photography studio but was also a publisher of postcards.

The nude postcards are also marked "Henri" or sometimes "Henry", and they also all have a number, in this case, 199.

Different photos may have the same number, like the three 199 photos above.  My guess is that the number refers to the model, i.e. the three 199 photos seem to be the same guy.  You'll also notice that either the photographer or the publisher has added a quite literal fig leaf to conceal frontal nudity.

Here's model 202.  Unfortunately, the actual models' names have not been preserved.

And here's model 203.  All of these nude postcards date from the 1910s and 1920s.  I think of them as forerunners of physique photography.

Here's model 204.  By 1941 Manuel's studio had produced over a million images.  The studio was shut down during World War II.  Almost all of the photographic plates were destroyed; only 500 survived.  Henri Manuel died a few years later at age 73.  Ironically, although the plates for these risqué images were destroyed, the images survived because they had been published as postcards.