Thérèse Bonney

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thérèse Bonney
Therese Bonney wearing medal, February 1942
Born	July 15, 1894 Syracuse, New York
Died	January 15, 1978 Paris, France
Occupation	Photographer Publicist

Thérèse Bonney (born Mabel Bonney, Syracuse, New York, July 15, 1894 - Paris, France, January 15, 1978), was an American photographer and publicist.

Bonney was best known for her images taken during World War II in Europe. She was twice awarded for bravery, published several photoessays and was the subject of the 1944 True Comics issue "Photofighter."

Bonney received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1916 and the year subsequent a master’s degree from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She settled in Paris and studied at the Sorbonne from 1918-19, publishing a thesis on the moral ideas in the theater of Alexandre Dumas, père, receiving a doctoral degree in 1921, and thus becoming the youngest person, the fourth woman, and the tenth American of either sex to receive the degree from the institution.

From ca. 1925, she thoroughly documented the French decorative arts through photography. An ardent self-publicist, Bonney acquired the images directly from the Salon exhibitions, stores, manufacturers, architects, and designers of furniture, ceramics, jewelry, and other applied art as well as architecture. However, at this time, most of the photographs were not taken by Bonney herself, but rather she gathered them from sources such as other photographers, photo agencies, architects, designers, stores, and various establishments. She sold the photographic prints to various client-subscribers primarily in the U.S. (a small-effort precursor to today's news agency) and charged fees for reproduction rights in a more traditional manner. She typed captions and glued them to the backs of the photographic prints. Her own photographs as well as those of others, sometimes reconnoitered without permissions, were widely published—both with and without printed credits. She attended the 1930 "Stockholmsutstäliningen" (Stockholm Exhibition) and gathered photographs there and, while in the Netherlands, images of contemporary Dutch architecture.

Toward the end of her life, Bonney donated her estate of photography and furniture to four institutions. Approximately 3,000 of her existing negatives went to the Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historique et des Sites (CHMHS) in Paris, today housed in St. Cloud. They have been digitally copied. Approximately 4,000 vintage photographic prints were given to the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York. Her extensive collection of World War II photographs, photographic portraits of designers and architects, paintings by 20th-century artists, and her furniture (including examples by Pierre Chareau) were donated to the library of University of California, Berkeley. A collection of photographs was turned over to the New York Public Library. The CNMHS and the Cooper-Hewitt collections are accessible; the University of California’s is not. Bonney, who never married, claimed to have adopted a child but legally did not.

[edit] Exhibitions

"War Comes to People: History Written with a Lens by Therese Bonney," The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1940.
Selections from the Thérèse Bonney Collection of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, International Center for Photography, New York, 1976.
"Paris Recorded: Thérèse Bonney Collection," Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, 1985.

[edit] References

Mann, Carol (1996). Paris Between the Wars. New York: Vendome. ISBN 0865659818.
Byars, Mel (1994). The Design Encyclopedia. New York: Wiley. ISBN 0471024554.
Bonney, Claire (1995). "Thérèse Bonney: The Architectural Photographs," a doctoral dissertation, Zurich: University of Zurich.
Kolosek, Lisa Schlansker (2002). The Invention of Chic: Thérèse Bonney and Paris Moderne. New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500510962.