Louis Stettner ( American, born 1922, died 2016)
Stettner is a celebrated American photographer whose work includes iconic images of Paris and New York. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York but moved to Paris in the 1950s, where he now lives permanently with his family.
Louis has photographed Paris and New York for over 60 years, capturing the changes in the people, culture, and architecture of both cities. Using both black-and-white and color images, his work documents fleeting moments in the life of the cities, moments that often cannot be recaptured. Stettner has documented the architectural and cultural evolution of Paris and New York, making his archive of thousands of images an important resource. Few photographers have such an extensive archive of both cities, one that includes historic images of each city's most celebrated landmarks and the daily lives of its citizens.
His work has an unforced naturalistic quality to it, as he sought to capture the ordinary, every day lives of his subjects. He was particularly interested in documenting the lives of the working class in each city and he demonstrates much sensitivity in this endeavor, photographing them with great dignity. A limited amount of his work is devoted to still life and landscape images. Additionally, his paintings and sculptures tend to be abstract and in sharp contrast to his clear, vivid photographic images.
As a teenager and young man, Stettner was a regular visitor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to explore its photographic prints collection. His first camera was a wooden view camera and today he still shoots with film rather than moving to digital images. Stettner studied and taught at the Photo League until he went to Paris after the Second World War. He received his Bachelor of Arts, Photography & Cinema I.D.H.E.C. at Paris University. Throughout his life, he has gotten to know and work with many great photographers.
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Paris-New York. Paris, New York: Two Cities Publications, 1949. Portfolio of 10 photographs, introduction by Brassaï.
Workers: Twenty-Four Photographs. New York: Stettner Studio, 1974. Portfolio.
Women. New York: Stettner Studio, 1976. Portfolio of 22 photographs.
Sur le Tas. Paris: Cercle d'Art, 1979. Book of 156 photographs, introduction by François Cavanna. (in French)
Early Joys: Photographs from 1947-1972. New York: Janet Iffland, 1987. Introduction by Brassaï.
Louis Stettner: New York, 1994. Kempen, New York: Te Neues; Paris, Flammarion, 1993.
Sous le ciel de Paris. Paris: Parigramme, 1994. Introduction by François Cavanna. (in French)
Louis Stettner's New York, 1950s–1990s. New York: Rizzoli, 1997.
Louis Stettner: American photographer, Paris: Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen, 11. Januar-9. März 1997. Aachen: Museum der Stadt Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, 1997. (in German)
Louis Stettner. Collection Photo Poche. Paris: Nathan, 1998. Introduction by François Bernheim. (in French)
Louis Stettner: Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets. Paris: Flammarion, 1999.
Louis Stettner: Sophisme, photographies 1990–1999. Neuchâtel: Ides et Callendes, 1999. Text by Michèle Auer. (in French)
Chile en el corazón. Santiago: LOM, 2001. (in Spanish)
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