Denise Colomb

Denise Colomb (1 April 1902, Paris – 1 Jan. 2004, Paris) was a French photographer celebrated for her portraits of mid-20^th-century artists, and for her “poetic-realist” photography capturing the daily life of numerous countries, from India to the West Indies and the Lofoten Islands (Norway), starting with Cambodia and Vietnam and China, which she explored in 1935 – 1937.

Born Denise Lœb to a Jewish family of musicians in Paris, she was set to become a cello concertist when she met and married in 1926 maritime engineer Gilbert Cahen, brother of photographer Thérèse Le Prat who herself was romantically involved with art historian and Angkorian art researcher Philippe Stern. When Cahen was posted in French Indochina, Denise moved with him to Saigon, buying her first Leica camera in Port-Said during the eastbound voyage. Between 1935 and 1937, she visited Cambodia, China and upper Vietnam, taking numerous photographs and documenting archaeological monuments.

From top to botttom: 1) Denise Colomb, *Autoportrait*, circa 1939 [source: Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine (MAP)]; 2) Denise Colomb dressed as a sewage worker during a photo report on Paris sewage system, 1953; 2) Denise Colomb, *Cham Art, Reclining Female Dancer, Tourane (now Da Nang) Museum*, 1937; Plateforme Ouverte du Patrimoine (POP); 4) Denise Colomb, Portrait of Leonor Fini and Leonora Carrington, 1952); 5) Cover of *Vagabondages,* Denise Colomb’s 2002 book; 6) The photographer in her Paris apartment a few days before her 100^th birthday [source: AFP].

In 1942, Denise had to flee the Nazi occupation to Dieulefit, a village in Drôme (south of France) under the alias “Colomb” that would become her artist’s name after Second World War. In 1947, she exhibited her Southeast Asian collection of photographs to a small group of friends, helped by her brother Pierre Loeb, an art expert who’d open his Galerie Pierre in 1957 and introduced her to artists and writers of renown. She started to work on their photo portraits. The list is impressive: Arpad Szenes, Vieira da Silva, Giacometti, Picasso, the poet and playwright Antonin Artaud, Calder, Chagall, the sculptor Cesar, Nicolas de Staël, Soulages, Miro, Vasarely, Leonor Fini or New York photographer Anna Leibovitz…

Later, she would recall that her photographying of Artaud in his “cluttered studio” definitely convinced her that photography was her vocation, while she “had the intuition he would end his own life” a few months after the session, on 4 March 1948. The encounter with Artaud was so intense, she said, that she asked the master of surrealist photography Man Ray how long it did take to become a real photographer, to which he allegedly answered: “Two months or never” (Le Figaro, 1 Apr. 2002).

Between assignments for French illustrated magazines such as Regards, Le Photographe, Point de vue-Images du Monde and Réalités, Colomb perfected the art of long-form photoreporting in the 1950s: the island of Sein and the communities of Brittany fishermen, Paris coachmen, road traffic officers, sewage workers, or the food market of Les Halles. At the invitation of poet and political activist Aimé Césaire, she undertook two work trips to Martinique and Guadeloupe (1948, 1958), producing ethnographic series later shown at Paris Musée de l’Homme.

Denise Colomb’s first solo, public exhibition was at Galerie Pierre in 1957, then she had a major one at Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1969. Art shows at Pavillon des Arts (1990) and Centre national de la photographie (1997) confirmed her as an established, leading photographer on an equal footing as photography living legends like Robert Doisneau, Édouard Boubat, or Izis and Willy Ronis.

In 1991, Denise Colomb donated her entire photographic archive — more than 50,000 negatives and some 2,000 signed prints — to the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie (MAP). To this public-funded collection were added in 2001 over 1,500 additional prints, hundreds of colour slides and 2,300 negatives. The Plateforme Ouverte du Patrimoine (POP) has started to release online digitized photos from the fund. As of August 2025, there were only six of those with Cambodia as location tab.

Publications

[photographer] Jean-Louis Vallas, Ponts de Paris, Paris, Albin Michel, 1951 [poems].
[photographer with E. de Montmollin, P. Verger, W. Bischof, H. Cartier Bresson, P. Chadourne, Claude Roy] Claude Roy, La Chine dans un miroir, La Guilde du Livre, 1953.
Portraits d’artistes: Les années ⁵⁰⁄₆₀, 1986, Paris, Editions 666.
Quelques réflexions sur Paris, Paris, Marval, 1989. ISBN13 978 – 2862340296.
L’artiste dans son cadre, Paris, Editions Argraphie, 1993, 95 p. ISBN13 978 – 2907009447.
Ronde de Nuits: rêves et photographies, Paris, Fata Morgana, 1994. ISBN13 ‏:978 – 2851941077.
Instantanés, Paris, La Chambre Noire, 1999. ISBN13‎ 978 – 2913925007.
[co-author] Guadeloupe, Temps incertains, Paris, Autrement Serie Mondes n 123, 2001, 271p. EAN 9782746700659.
[photographer with Man Ray, René Burri & Robert Doisneau] Gautier Villars, Objectif Picasso, Exhibition Catalog at Galerie Kamel Mennour, Apr.-May 2001. EAN 978B085SZHSPP.
Vagabondages: Errance De La Memoire, Paris, Filigranes, 2002, 250 p. ISBN13 978 – 29143813072002.
Denise Colomb aux Antilles, Paris, Filigranes/Jeu de Paume, 2009, 144 p. ISBN13‎ 978 – 2350461731.

Publications about Denise Colomb

Noël Bourcier & Musee d’Art et d’Essai de Paris, Denise Colomb (Collection Donations), Paris, Editions La Manufacture, 1992, 233 p. ISBN13 ‎ 978 – 2737703096.
Denise Colomb, Pavillon des arts/Musees de Paris, 1992, 108 p. ISBN13 ‏ 978 – 2905958099.
Jean-Claude Lemagny, Denise Colomb: Portraits, Paris, Editions La Manufacture, 1996. ISBN13‏ ‎978 – 2737704123.