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Biography

A childhood surrounded by artists

Jean-Noël L’Harmeroult was born in Paris in 1954. His parents were shopkeepers and worked in “Les Halles” at night. He was therefore brought up mainly by his aunts and spent long periods with one of them, Dominique Aubier, a writer, in the little village of Carboneras in Spain. As a youngster, he saw the works of many artists, including Soulages, Hartung, Zao Wou Ki, Manessier, Sotto, Max Ernst, Moreti, Miró and Picasso, and sometimes the artists themselves, who were friends of his aunt. He therefore started to paint and take photographs from childhood.

In the world of the fashion greats

Having followed a course at the Charles Vandame school of Photography in Boulogne, Jean-Noël L’Harmeroult was chosen at the age of 17 to produce books for the models at the Paris branch of Pauline’s Agency. Then, in 1972, at the age of 18, he made his entrance into the world of the fashion greats when he was taken on by Peter Knapp, artistic director of Elle magazine, to work as a photographer.

For over thirty years he took fashion photographs for the world’s greatest magazines: Elle, Dépêche-Mode, Marie-Claire, Vogue, Amica, Donna, Femme, Harper's Bazaar, Madame Figaro, Glamour… During the ‘90s he produced a large number of advertising campaigns for prestigious labels from the world of fashion and beauty.

From silver image to digital

Jean-Noël L’Harmeroult was not content with his complete mastery of silver-image photography. He worked with graphics software as soon as it came out and launched into digital creation. Several exhibitions were dedicated to his work in the early 2000s: re-coloured fashion photograph and black-and-white digital montages.

Pictorial research combining painting and photography

He continued to paint alongside his photographic work and, from 2006, the two aspects of his artistic creation came together. He painted in pastel and charcoal directly on to photos, usually digital montages, as part of three great projects: Manhattan Transfer in 2006, La Clé des Secrets ei 2007 and Connivence in 2008.

He is currently working on a new concept that follows on from La Clé d'Or and La Clé des Secrets with Top Model Carole Congos from the CRYSTAL Agency: “Carole symbolises a new Eve in my digital montages, which are printed on canvas, then completed with charcoal, pastels, inks, acrylics and oils,..."

Exhibitions

Jean-Noël l'Harmeroult regularly exhibits in New York and Washington with the two galleries that represent him in the USA and in various places in France:

2003: La Clé d'Or exhibition presented at the Galerie de Rothschild, 22 Avenue Matignon Paris

2004: Color Forever exhibition at the Hôtel de Bougtherould, Rouen

2005: Naked Color exhibition at the Grand Casino, Forges-Les-Eaux

2006: La Clé des Secrets exhibition at Dorothy's Galerie, Paris

2008: Exhibition: The Non-photos in Washington DC, at the Honfleur Gallery and in New York with EFG Art Gallery and presented at the Basel-Miami Art Fair by EFG-Gallery NYC

2009: Exhibition at the AAF in New York with the Honfleur Gallery, Washington

News

Since March, an exhibition of his “Non-Photos” at the "Honfleur Gallery" in Washington.

Useful links

The Jean-Noël L'Harmeroult website

The website of the Emmanuel Fremin Gallery in New York www.efg-artgallery.com

The website of the Honfleur Gallery in Washington

The Blog "Paysages sous influence"

The Blog "Ground Zero"

See Jean-Noël L'Harmeroult’s blog dedicated to painting.

Jean-Noël L'Harmeroult 's products at Nouvelles Images

> Prints and posters

Jean-Noël L'Harmeroult