Andy Warhol in the Gaze of a 60s French Photographer

Full of bad haircuts, perfectly posed group shots, and unsentimental romanticism.

November 12, 2016, 12:30pm

Hervé Gloaguen, 'Andy Warhol at the Factory,' NY 1966, 40 x 50 cm, C-print on argentic paper. Courtesy Galerie Arcturus and the artist

When Hervé Gloaguen arrived in New York City as a young Parisian photographer, he landed at the center of Andy Warhol’s inner circle, camera in hand. Gloaguen was in the US on assignment for popular French magazine Réalités, and his photos from 1965–1971 capture Warhol, his scene, and his city with endearing naiveté. Half a century after Gloaguen documented Warhol’s world, New York au Temps d’Andy Warhol puts the portraits on display once again at Galerie Arcturus, as part of the fifth-annual Photo Saint-Germain festival in Paris.

Gloaguen, unlike his star-struck contemporaries, dismantles Warhol’s invulnerability, producing photographs not of a celebrity, but of a friend. The images, like his metropolitan landscapes and portraits of other artists—take a young Yayoi Kusama and her clique, for example—are fun and indulgent. Full of bad haircuts, perfectly posed group shots, and unsentimental romanticism, the photos are nostalgia at its best.

Let Gloaguen’s portraits of 1960s New York wash away the woes of 2016, below:

1967, Yayoi Kusama, NY by Herve Gloaguen.jpeg

Hervé Gloaguen, Saint Mark’s place, near the Dom (Third from the right is the artist Yayoi Kusama), NY 1967, 40 x 50 cm,Gelatin silver print on Baryta paper