PHOTOGRAPHERS from France

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary French Photographers of all time. This list of famous French Photographers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of French Photographers.

1. Nadar (1820 - 1910)

With an HPI of 77.63, Nadar is the most famous French Photographer.  His biography has been translated into 60 different languages on wikipedia.

Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (French: [ɡaspaʁ feliks tuʁnaʃɔ̃]; 5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910), known by the pseudonym Nadar (French: [nadaʁ]) or Félix Nadar, was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist who was a proponent of heavier-than-air flight. In 1858, he became the first person to take aerial photographs. Photographic portraits by Nadar are held by many of the great national collections of photographs. His son, Paul Nadar, continued the studio after his death.

2. Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 - 2004)

With an HPI of 75.13, Henri Cartier-Bresson is the 2nd most famous French Photographer.  His biography has been translated into 57 different languages.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French: [ɑ̃ʁi kaʁtje bʁɛsɔ̃]; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer, and also an artist. He was considered a master of candid photography, and was an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography and viewed capturing what he named the decisive moment as the essence of the very best pictures. Cartier-Bresson was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos in 1947. In the 1970s he largely discontinued his photographic work, instead opting to paint.

3. Dora Maar (1907 - 1997)

With an HPI of 70.23, Dora Maar is the 3rd most famous French Photographer.  Her biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Henriette Theodora Markovitch (22 November 1907 – 16 July 1997), known as Dora Maar, was a French photographer and painter. Maar was both a pioneering Surrealist artist and an antifascist activist. Maar was depicted in a number of Picasso's paintings, including his Portrait of Dora Maar and Dora Maar au Chat. However, Maar said of the works: "All his portraits of me are lies. They're all Picassos. Not one is Dora Maar." Her work ranged from commercial assignments in fashion and advertising to documenting social and economic struggles during the Depression, and explored Surrealist themes. Maar was one of the few photographers to be included in exhibitions of surrealist work in the 1930s in Paris, New York and London, alongside Man Ray and Salvador Dalí. Her techniques in the darkroom explore psychology, dreams and inner states. Maar's political activism and photographic style influenced Pablo Picasso's work during the period of their romantic relationship. In particular, Maar's influence can be seen in Picasso's anti-war painting Guernica (1937). "She influenced Picasso to paint Guernica – he had never entered political painting before," says Amar Singh, curator of Amar Gallery in London.

4. Robert Doisneau (1912 - 1994)

With an HPI of 69.06, Robert Doisneau is the 4th most famous French Photographer.  His biography has been translated into 47 different languages.

Robert Doisneau (French: [ʁɔbɛʁ dwano]; 14 April 1912 – 1 April 1994) was a French photographer. From the 1930s, he photographed the streets of Paris. He was a champion of humanist photography and, with Henri Cartier-Bresson, a pioneer of photojournalism. Doisneau is known for his 1950 image Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss by the City Hall), a photograph of a couple kissing on a busy Parisian street. He was appointed a Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion of Honour in 1984 by then French president, François Mitterrand.

5. Elliott Erwitt (1928 - 2023)

With an HPI of 65.42, Elliott Erwitt is the 5th most famous French Photographer.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Elliott Erwitt (born Elio Romano Erwitz, July 26, 1928 – November 29, 2023) was a French-born American advertising and documentary photographer known for his black and white candid photos of ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings. He was a member of Magnum Photos from 1953.

6. Étienne Carjat (1828 - 1906)

With an HPI of 63.14, Étienne Carjat is the 6th most famous French Photographer.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Étienne Carjat (French pronunciation: [etjɛn kaʁʒa]; 28 March 1828 – 8 March 1906) was a French journalist, caricaturist and photographer. He co-founded the magazine Le Diogène, and founded the review Le Boulevard. He is best known for his numerous portraits and caricatures of political, literary and artistic Parisian figures. His best-known work is the iconic portrait of Arthur Rimbaud which he took in October 1871. The location of much of his photography is untraceable after being sold to a Mr. Roth in 1923.

7. Sophie Calle (b. 1953)

With an HPI of 62.76, Sophie Calle is the 7th most famous French Photographer.  Her biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Sophie Calle (French pronunciation: [sɔfi kal]; born 9 October 1953) is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Daughter of the contemporary art collector Robert Calle, Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognized for her detective-like tendency to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work often includes panels of text of her own writing. Since 2005, Calle has taught as a professor of film and photography at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. She has lectured at the University of California, San Diego in the Visual Arts Department. She has also taught at Mills College in Oakland, California. Exhibitions of Calle's work took place at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme, Paris; Paula Cooper Gallery, New York; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium; Videobrasil, SESC Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil; Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil; Whitechapel Gallery, London; , the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, Netherlands;; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; and the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast. She represented France at the Venice Biennale in 2007. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for her publication My All (Actes Sud, 2016). In 2019 she was the recipient of the Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship.

8. Claude Cahun (1894 - 1954)

With an HPI of 61.84, Claude Cahun is the 8th most famous French Photographer.  Her biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Claude Cahun (French pronunciation: [klod ka.œ̃], born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob; 25 October 1894 – 8 December 1954) was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer. Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portraitist, who assumed a variety of performative personae. In her writing, Cahun mostly referred to herself with grammatically feminine words, but she also said that her actual gender was fluid. For example, in what is generally considered to be her masterpiece, 'Aveux non Avenus'(1930), available in English as Cancelled Confessions or Disavowals, Cahun writes: "Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me." Cahun is most well known for her androgynous appearance, which challenged the strict gender roles of her time. During World War II, Cahun and lifelong partner Marcel Moore launched a two-person resistance campaign against the Nazis who had occupied Jersey. For this they would be sentenced to death (saved at the last minute by the Armistice). They were also active in the leftist group Contre Attaque, a union of communist writers, artists and workers, alongside André Breton and Marcel Moore.

9. Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894 - 1986)

With an HPI of 61.81, Jacques Henri Lartigue is the 9th most famous French Photographer.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Jacques Henri Lartigue (French: [laʁtig]; 13 June 1894 – 12 September 1986) was a French photographer and painter, known for his photographs of automobile races, planes and female Parisian fashion models.

10. André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (1819 - 1889)

With an HPI of 60.75, André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri is the 10th most famous French Photographer.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (French: [ɑ̃dʁe adɔlf(ə) øʒɛn(ə) dizdeʁi]; 28 March 1819 – 4 October 1889) was a French photographer who started his photographic career as a daguerreotypist but gained greater fame for patenting his version of the carte de visite, a small photographic image which was mounted on a card. Disdéri, a brilliant showman, made this system of mass-production portraiture world famous.