(7 nov 1922, NYC – 13 oct 2016, NYC)

Louis Stettner was a 20th century American photographer whose work included cityscapes, portraits and architectural images of New York and Paris.

His work has been highly appreciated for its humanity and for capturing the life and reality of people and the streets. Starting in 1947, Stettner photographed the changes in people, culture and architecture of both cities. He continued to photograph New York and Paris until his death.

Stettner was born in Brooklyn, Nueva York son of a cabinetmaker. As a young man he learned his father’s trade and used the money he earned for his growing love of photography. His love for art began on his first visit to Metropolitan Museum of Art de Manhattan.

In 1940 he joined the United States Army and became a combat photographer in Europe for the US Army Signal Corps. After a brief stint in Europe, he was sent to New Guinea, the Philippines and Japan.

After the war he joined the Photo League in NYC and in 1946 he moved to Paris. From 1947 to 1949 he studied at the “Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques” in Paris and received a Bachelor of Arts in Photography and Film. He finally settled permanently in Saint-Ouen, near Paris, in 1990.

His professional work began by capturing life in the post-war recovery. Following the tradition of the Photo League, he tried to investigate the ties that connect people to each other. In 1947, the Photo League itself asked him to organize an exhibition of French photographers in New York. He gathered the works of some of the best photographers of the time, including Doisneau, Brassaï, Boubat, Izis, and Ronis. The program was a great success and was largely revised at the annual U.S.Cameram.

He became friends with Brassaï who was a great mentor to him and had a very significant influence on his work.

In 1951 his work was included in the famous exhibition Subjektive Fotografie in Germany.

During the 1950s he worked independently for TIME, LIFE, FORTUNE and DU. While in Paris, he reconnected with Paul Strand, who had also left New York due to the political intolerance of the McCarthy era: Strand had been one of the founders of the Photo League that would be blacklisted and then banned during those years.

Independent work

Stettner focused on documenting the lives of working people in both Paris and New York. He felt that cities belong to the people who live there, not to tourists or visitors. His education made him very careful to capture the simple human dignity of the working class. He also captured remarkable architectural images of both cities, including bridges, buildings and monuments.

The themes and series included: New York from 1946 to now, Penn Station, The Subways, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, The Seine, The Bowery, The Workers y Early Paris

Stettner produjo imágenes conocidas, que incluyen: Aubervilliers, Brooklyn Promenade, Twin Towers with Sea Gull, Penn Station y la Estatua de la Libertad y Battery Park.

At the age of 90 he used a large format camera of the dimensions used by his hero, Paul Strand; an 8 × 10 Deardorff to photograph details of the landscape of Les Alpilles in Provence where Van Gogh often painted, assisted by his wife Janet.

Awards

He received numerous awards and honors among which are

In 1950 he was named the best revelation photographer of the LIFE Magazine
In 1975 won the First Prize in the World Pravda Competition.

Select exhibitions

Louis Stettner, Limelight Gallery, August 17-September 27 1954
What’s New: Recent Acquisitions in Photography. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2001
Star Spangled Spirit. Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, 2002
City Streets. Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Fla, 2003
Photographies récentes par Louis Stettner. Galerie Marion Meyer, Paris, 2003
Full House: Views from the Whitney’s Collection at 75. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2006
Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, 2006
Louis Stettner: Photographien. Camera Work, Berlin, 2006
Louis Stettner: Streetwise. Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, 2006
Fotografía Contemporánea. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, 2006

Selected books and portfolios

Paris-New York. Paris, New York: Two Cities Publications, 1949. Portfolio of 10 photographs, introduction by Brassaï.
Workers: Twenty-Four Photographs. New York: Stettner Studio, 1974. Portfolio.
Women. New York: Stettner Studio, 1976. Portfolio of 22 photographs.
Sur le Tas. Paris: Cercle d’Art, 1979.
Early Joys: Photographs from 1947-1972.
Louis Stettner: New York.
Sous le ciel de Paris. Paris: Parigramme, 1994.
Louis Stettner’s New York, 1950s–1990s.
Louis Stettner: American photographer.
Louis Stettner. Collection Photo Poche. Paris: Nathan, 1998.
Louis Stettner: Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets.
Louis Stettner: Sophisme, photographies 1990–1999. Neuchâtel: Ides et Callendes, 1999. Text by Michèle Auer.
Chile en el corazón. Santiago: LOM, 2001.