Florence Henri

Florence Henri (born June 28, 1893, New York, New York, U.S.—died July 24, 1982, Compiègne, France) was an American-born Swiss photographer and painter associated with the Bauhaus and best known for her use of mirrors and unusual angles to create disorienting photographs.

By mid-adolescence Henri had lost both her parents. She was raised by an array of extended family members in Silesia (now southwestern Poland), London, the Isle of Wight in England, and Rome. She began studying music in London and by 1911 was a proficient pianist.

Henri moved to Berlin about 1912 and at first continued to study music, but her focus shifted toward the visual arts, especially after she met art critic and historian Carl Einstein, through whom she became acquainted with Berlin’s avant-garde artists. She began her painting studies in 1914 while in Berlin. Henri moved to Paris in 1924 and took painting classes at the Académie Montparnasse and later at the Académie Moderne. She enrolled at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, in 1927. There she studied painting with Josef Albers and was introduced to photography by László Moholy-Nagy. She also fostered a close friendship with his wife, Lucia Moholy—who took striking close-up photographs of Henri—and within a year Henri had abandoned painting for photography.

Henri moved back to Paris in 1929 and set up a studio there. She practiced photography and developed a geometric and abstract aesthetic greatly influenced by the reigning avant-garde movements, especially Constructivism and late Cubism. Her photographs often incorporated mirrors, which she used to disrupt and fragment space. Henri established herself as a portraitist and as a commercial photographer in the advertising and fashion industries. She became known for her closely cropped still lifes and for her portraits, most of which were of women. Among her best-known images is a 1928 self-portrait with two balls and a mirror. Her interest in sharp lines and clear details aligned her with the New Vision (Neue Sehen) photography movement led by Albert Renger-Patzsch. She participated in several important photography exhibitions, including “Film und Foto” (1929, Stuttgart) and “Das Lichtbild” (1931, Munich), and she had her first solo exhibition in 1930 in Paris.

Her output decreased significantly during World War II initially because of a lack of materials and then ultimately, with the Nazi occupation of France, because of the prohibition against her brand of abstract photography. After the war Henri returned to painting. As was the case with many women artists of the early 20th century, her work was forgotten until renewed interest by feminist scholars resurrected it in the 1970s. She had her first solo exhibition in four decades in 1974, at which time a small portfolio of her work was also published. Since then she has been included in a number of solo exhibitions and many group exhibitions alongside the many talented women of her era.