Freund, Gisele

▪ 2001

      German-born French photographer (b. Dec. 19, 1908?, Berlin, Ger.—d. March 31, 2000, Paris, France), was noted especially for her portraits of the cultural elite of France and for her service as François Mitterrand's official photographer following his election (1981) as president of France. Unlike the prevailing photographers of the time, she worked in colour, saying it was “closer to life.” As a student in Frankfurt, Ger., Freund was engaged in the struggle against the rise of Nazism and in 1933 was forced to flee Germany to avoid arrest. She settled in Paris and studied at the Sorbonne for a doctorate, which was awarded in 1936. She had already become established as a photojournalist and was freelancing for leading news magazines, and Paris bookseller Adrienne Monnier published her dissertation as a book, La Photographie en France au 19^e siècle (1936). Monnier became Freund's friend, mentor, and companion and introduced her to Parisian intellectuals, including the subject of one of her most famous photographs, André Malraux. The Nazi invasion of France forced Freund to again flee, and she went to Argentina. Following the end of World War II, she worked in Mexico before returning (1952) to Paris. Robert Capa invited Freund to join the cooperative agency Magnum Photos but later (1954) dismissed her because her inclusion on the blacklist of the communist-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy made Capa fearful for the agency's future in the U.S. Freund's career continued until the mid-1980s, when she gave up photography in favour of another interest—reading. Among the numerous books Freund produced were James Joyce in Paris: His Final Years (1965), Le Monde et ma camera (1970; The World in My Camera, 1974), and Photographie et société (1974), and she garnered such awards as the Grand Prix National des Arts. Freund was made an Officer of Arts and Letters in 1982 and chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1983.

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