Jean Moral

Male Nude, Jean Moral, 1929

Jean Moral, born 7 Jun 1906 at Marchiennes, France, was a French photographer, illustrator and painter. He worked for more than a decade as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar.

Moral relocated to Paris in 1925, the same year that André Kertész arrived from Hungary, and he started his photography business at the publisher Léon Ullmann, then, in 1932, moving to the Tolmer Brothers. Moral experimented with avant-garde photographic techniques (double exposure, solarization, photograms - which Man Ray called "rayograms", and low-angle shots).

In 1927, he met photographers Roger Parry, Daniel Masclet and Robert Pontabry. He begins to take photographs of dunes, beaches, sea at Lacanau and continues his experiments. The same year, he met Juliette Bastide, a native of Bordeaux, whom he married in 1931. From 1932 he collaborated with Lucien Vogel, the editor of Vu, providing photographs of Paris entertainers – like Josephine Baker, Marcel Duchamp, and the Rocky Twins – Paris socialites and the stars of French cinema. It was during this period, 1927-1933, that Moral photographed the majority of the male nudes in his catalog that qualify as physique photography.

In 1933, he exhibited at Daniel Masclet's First International Exhibition of Nude Photography. This same year Moral made his first trip to Spain, staying with Reynaldo Luza, illustrator of Harper's Bazaar, at his home in Palma del Río; his photo article on "Casa Luza" was published in Harper's Bazaar in July 1933. In 1934, he became the exclusive and contractual French fashion photographer of Harper's Bazaar, a competitor of Vogue. This collaboration started in April 1933 lasting until 1940, then from 1945 to 1954.

In 1937, he began working as a press photographer, notably for Paris Match and Paris-Soir. In 1938, presenting in these magazines a series of photographic reports on the Spanish Civil War with texts by Joseph Kessel.

In 1940, he was assigned to the Army Cinematographic Service (French: Service Cinématographique de l'Armée) with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Raymond Voinquel and Cassandre (Adolphe Jean Marie Mouron). He was granted permission to continue his fashion reports in the streets of Paris, always for the American magazine. Following the surrender of France in June 1940, Moral fled to Lyon, then Cannes where he was hosted by Francis Picabia. It was from here that he divorced Juliette in 1941.

In 1945, Moral resumed his activities as a fashion photographer for Harper's (as well as fashion drawings) and the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, until 1954.

1955 marks the beginning of Moral's life as a painter. He left in 1961 for Switzerland, where he lived from his painting until his death. In December 1999, just before his death, the first exhibition of his photography took place in Grenoble, organized by Serge Lemoine then director of the museum of that city, then in the museums of Chalon-sur-Saône and Lausanne.

In 2004, an exhibition of his works was displayed at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. In 2017, a part of his photographs were added to the collections of Palais Galliera, fashion museum of the city of Paris.

Like Man Ray, Jean moral produced a small number of male nudes that have been, as male nudes almost reliably ever are, largely overlooked within the salon society of art critics and fashion commentaors. The few I have seen were outstanding compositions, clearly the work of a master photographer. Obtaining originals is nearly imposible.

Also like Man Ray, Jean Moral's influence on other photographers, such as Jean Ferréro and Danny Fitzgerald, albeit acknowledged, cannot be measured.