Prodan Romanian Cultural Foundation
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
+44 (0) 20 7831 9905
17redlionsquare@gmail.com

 

Renee Perle
(Unknown-1977) Artist

Born in Romania, date and place unknown; died in the South of France in 1977.


An original Lartigue portrait of Renee Perle which the Foundation has on loan from Robert and Olivia Temple.

Renee Perle, a Romanian Jewish girl who moved to Paris, is famous as the first muse of the famous French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894-1986), who is considered one of the leading photographers of the 20th century. Renee lived with Lartigue as his girl friend, having met her in 1929 or 1930. Her spectacular beauty inspired some of his best photographs. Renee also painted, and a large number of her quaint and naive self-portraits are seen in some Lartigue photos. They do not show much mastery of artistic technique, but they have a strange fascination, perhaps because they show something approaching a manic-compulsion by Renee to paint her own face on canvas over and over, almost without end. The Foundation has made many efforts to find one of these for its collection, as a specimen, but so far with no success. We have been in touch with Renee's step-daughter, who has an oil portrait of her step-mother, but everything else which had been carefully preserved by Renee was dispersed in 2000 and 2001 in two famous Paris sales by Tajan. Renee also worked as a fashion model.





w Here is a link to a brief YouTube tribute to Renee Perle with a number of Lartigue’s photographs of her:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMYwtA7280Y