Harry Meerson Biography
Harry Ossip Meerson was born in 1910 in Warsaw (Poland), into a Jewish family of Russian origin who immigrated to northern Europe in 1915. They then settled in Germany where their other half was already living. works as a decorator in Berlin in the UFA studios. Harry Meerson began working there as a cameraman on the set, then in 1929 he joined Lazare, who had already been living in Paris since 1926.
He found work as a portrait photographer for Le Figaro Illustré. He hires Dora Maar, then Willy Maywald as his assistant. In 1932 he created the Studio Boileau, of which Brassaï was a frequent visitor. Then Harper's Bazaar invited him to work in the United States, from 1938 to 1939. Once he returned to France, he was forced to live in hiding. He resumed his activity in 1945, dealing mainly with fashion and advertising. He innovates by staging his subjects against neutral backgrounds.
His clients include Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Lanvin or Marcel Rochas. He is also the author of advertising photos for the companies Helena Rubinstein (London), the Carita hairdressing sisters of Paris. His images are published in many fashion magazines, Harper's Bazaar, Femina, Your Beauty, Vogue or Le Jardin des modes.
In 1981 he exhibited at the French Museum of Photography in Bièvres (Essonne). In 1987 he titled his exhibition in Paris Transcendences and Transparencies. It was part of the 1987 group exhibition at the Musée de l'Élysée, New Photography in France, 1919-1939, and the 2011 exhibition at the European House of Photography, The Photographic Object: An Invention permed.
