François Fontaine was born in Paris in 1968.
As a History of Art student at the Sorbonne, he developed a passion for photography and travel,
which he would combine over the following ten years during trips to South-East Asia. In 1997,
Fontaine was shortlisted for the Kodak Prize for Critical Photography for his feature story Phnom-Penh Jails.
From 1998 to 2002, Fontaine lived and worked in Spain. His feature stories Poésie Urbaine
and Les Fleurs de la Nuit were exhibited in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Paris.
In 2005, Fontaine exhibited Lost In China at the first Guangzhou Photo Biennial and then took up residence
at the Guangdong Museum of Art of Guangzhou. The photographs’ dreamlike, chromatic quality earned Fontaine third place for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award.
In 2006 and 2007, Fontaine was to continue his photographic discovery of statues and monuments, previously explored in Spain and Brazil, in carrying out a commission for Palace magazine on the subject of Paris’s public statues.
In 2008, Fontaine exhibited Lost in China, Les Christs de Salvador and Rêves de Statues at the Guangdong Museum of Art in China. He also completed two series of photographs in Japan, Naoshima and Japanese Whispers.
In 2009, both Rêves de Statues and Les Christs de Salvador were exhibited at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.
The last voyage of helicopter-carrier the Jeanne d’Arc was captured by Fontaine in 2010 in his feature story
Le Vaisseau Fantôme.
In 2010 with his serie L’Heure Sacrée the artist plunges into the deep spirituality of Hinduism in India.
Fontaine’s most recent oeuvre, Silenzio, explores the world of cinema. This serie is a chromatic collection of illusory photographs in wich glamour and suspense vie with each other for centre stage.
Fontaine, whose work is inseparable from the themes of fantasy and the ethereal, has created a timeless photographic oeuvre that draws inspiration intuitively from and in response to encounters with different events, cultures and peoples. Inspired by a lifelong passion for travel, Fontaine creates stories in images,
just as a writer or director of films might weave their tales on paper or on film.
Fontaine’s work can be found in the following collections
Public collections: Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF); Maison Européene de la Photographie (Paris); Galeries Fnac; Hermès; Leica Camera (Paris); Maison Robert Doisneau (Gentilly); Guangdong Museum of Art(Guangzhou)
Private collections: in France, Spain, Switzerland, the USA, Brazil, Turkey and China.
François Fontaine has been represented by Agence VU’ since 2008.
INTERVIEW
Interview in 2007 by “Fine Art Tv” at the Galerie Claude Samuel in Paris
www.finearttv.tv
FEATURE STORIES
2010: India
‘L’Heure Sacrée’
The North Sea
‘Le Vaisseau Fantôme’. The last campaign of the helicopter carrier Jeanne d’Arc
(Marine Nationale, Nantes Privilège)
2009: Berlin, Germany
‘Berlin, un Phare dans la Nuit’ (German National Tourist Office)
2008: Japan
‘Japanese Whispers’ (Metro, La Maison du Japon)
‘Naoshima’ (La maison du Japon)
2006-2007: Paris, France
‘Le Jardin du Luxembourg’ (Palace)
‘Rêves de Statues’ (Palace, Exporama)
2006-2007: Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Yemen
‘Fantômes d’Orient’ (Le Monde de la Musique)
2005: China
‘Lost in China’ (Images Magazine, Photo Nouvelles, Réponses Photo,
Le Monde de la Musique, Le Monde 2, Double, Senso, Photo, Metro,
La Maison de la Chine, Paisajes, catalogue Weston, éditions Gallimard)
‘China Beach’ (Métro, Connaissance des Arts)
2004: Brazil
‘Les Christs de Salvador’ (Palace, Minotaure, Images, Le Monde de la Musique,
Connaissance des Arts Spécial Photo, Elle, Paris-art, Metro).
‘Les Murs de São Luis’ (Zurban, Paris-art)‘Carnet de Voyages’
(L’Œil, Minotaure,
La Maison des Amériques)
1999 – 2002: Spain (Madrid, Grenada)
‘Les Fleurs de la Nuit’ (Rolling Stone, Minotaure, Zurban, Libération, Médicos del Mundo)
‘Poésie Urbaine’ (Joyce, Vogue, Le Monde Diplomatique, Palace, The Broadsheet, Foto)
‘La Semaine Sainte’ (Le Monde de la Musique, L’œil, Le Journal des Arts,
The Broadsheet, Paisajes)
1991 – 2001: South-East Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Burma)
‘Les Filles de Phnom-Penh’ (Médecins du Monde), 2001
‘Les Prisons de Phnom-Penh’ (Médecins du Monde), 1997
‘Birmanie’ (Le Nouvel Observateur, La Maison de l’Indochine), 1996
‘Le Mékong’ (Le Journal des Arts, La Croix, Télérama, Le Monde de la Musique,
La Maison de l’Indochine), 1991, 1995, 2001
‘Angkor’ (Télérama, Minotaure, Le Monde de la Musique, La Maison de l’Indochine),
1991, 1997, 2001