Constant Puyo

Biography

Puyo was born to a prominent bourgeois family in Morlaix in 1857. His father, Edmond Puyo (1828–1916), was a painter, amateur archaeologist, and politician, who served as Mayor of Morlaix in the 1870s. His uncle, Édouard Corbière, was a best-selling author, and his cousin, Tristan Corbière, was a well-known poet. He served with the French Army in Algeria during the 1880s. Around 1882, he started using cameras to photograph his drawings. In 1896, he published his first book, Notes sur la Photographie Artistique, which explained how photography could be used to create works of art.

Following his retirement from the military in 1902, Puyo was able to devote himself more fully to photography.

Works Photographs

Puyo believed that for a photograph to be considered art, it must create a beauty independent of the subject, He considered the manipulation of a photograph to be an expression of individuality, and believed that manipulation was necessary to eliminate the sense that the photograph was produced by an unemotional machine. the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Centre Atlantique de la Photographie in Brest. A large number of Puyo's photographs are on display at the Morlaix Museum, founded by his father in the 1870s.

Literature

Notes sur la Photographie Artistique (1896) Le Procédé à la Gomme Bichromatée (1904) Les Objectifs d'Artiste (1906), coauthored with Jean Leclerc de Pulligny Les Procédés d'Art en Photographie (1906), coauthored with Robert Demachy Le Procédé Rawlins à l'Huile (1907) Comment Composer un Portrait (1925)

Gallery