For the 2025 edition of the Photo Saint Germain festival, the Le Minotaure gallery presents the exhibition Florence Henri, bringing together iconic prints from the 1920s and 1930s, all produced during the artist’s lifetime and signed by her. Among them are twelve prints from the portfolio published in 1974 by the Galerie Wilde in Cologne, a decisive moment in the rediscovery of her work after decades of oblivion.
Initially trained in music and then painting, Florence Henri turned to photography after her stay at the Bauhaus in 1927, marked by her encounter with László Moholy-Nagy and Lucia Moholy. Back in Paris, she quickly established herself with a unique style, influenced by post-Cubism and Constructivism. Her compositions, using mirrors, reflections, and multiple perspectives, disorient the viewer, bordering on abstraction.
In 1929, her participation in the legendary “Film und Foto” exhibition alongside Man Ray, Germaine Krull, and André Kertész cemented her central role in the photographic avant-garde. But the Second World War interrupted her momentum: deprived of materials, she returned to painting and subsequently fell into obscurity.
It was only in the early 1970s that her work was rediscovered, notably thanks to Ann and Jürgen Wilde, who dedicated an exhibition to her and published a portfolio of twelve modern prints with her, presented today in this exhibition, as essential milestones for understanding the strength and originality of her artistic journey.