A singular artist, Jan Groover (1943-2012), of American origin, had a major impact on the recognition of color photography. This exhibition – from 8 November 2022 to 13 February 2023 at Henri-Cartier Bresson foundation in Paris – is the first retrospective that has been dedicated to her since her death in 2012 and shows the evolution of her work, from the original polyptychs to the still lifes that she will produce throughout her life. Thanks to the donation of the Jan Groover archives to Photo Elysée (Lausanne) in 2017, the exhibition "Laboratory of forms" presented in 2019 in Lausanne, pays homage to an artist who has constantly renewed herself, thus becoming part of the history of photography. The exhibition
Jan Groover started photography as a challenge
Noting that "photography wasn't taken seriously" in the United States in the 60s, she turned away from abstract painting, which she studied. In 1967, Jan Groover bought his first camera, which he described as his "first act as an adult". However, his taste for abstraction and pictoriality is found in his first series of polyptychs whose subject multiplies, divides or hides behind opaque forms, to the point of denying it. Since the late 70s, Jan Groover has devoted herself to still life, a classic genre of pictorial arts, which he explored to the end of his life through an exceptional diversity of subjects, formats and processes. While documentary photography is in the spotlight on magazines like LIFE, Jan Groover uses his knowledge of painting in his photographic work and thus contributes to giving abstract photography its letters of nobility, producing shots for forms of pleasure, far from any meaning or pretension.
In addition to still lifes, Jan Groover's work also incorporates series on the subject of highways, portraits and body parts.
Actor of the mutation of the photographic medium towards greater versatility, a quality hitherto attributed to painting or drawing, Jan Groover experiments with different creative techniques. For example, the use of platinum and palladium printing for his series of urban shots or the portraits of his relatives, such as John Coplans or Janet Borden with whom he is in constant intellectual dialogue. There Jan Groover exhibition. Laboratorio delle forme presents period prints in color and black and white, as well as the photographer's working documents (polaroids, preparatory notebooks, etc.), allowing you to discover his creative methods and to better appreciate the experimental nature of the his work as well as his influence on contemporary photography.
Who is Jan Groover? The biography of the photographer
Jan Groover was born on April 24, 1943 in Plainfield, New Jersey, USA. She first studied abstract painting at the Pratt Institute in New York and launched into photography by buying her first camera at the dawn of the 70s. Same place, portraits and still lifes, a recurring theme in her career. In 1970, Jan Groover received a master's degree in art education from Ohio State University, Columbus. She then moved to New York with her partner, painter and art critic Bruce Boice. It is in this city, the center of contemporary creation, that she gradually gains recognition in the environment and she experiments with other photographic techniques, such as platinum and palladium printing. In 1974 the Light Gallery hosted her first solo exhibition and in 1978 she obtained a scholarship from the federal agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. A respected teacher at Purchase College, she notably trained photographers Gregory Crewdson, Laurie Simmons and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. In 1987, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) dedicated a retrospective exhibition to the work of Jan Groover. The Groover-Boice couple thus gravitated to the New York art world until 1991, the year of their definitive installation in France, in the Dordogne. Jan Groover continued his series of still lifes there, despite the illness that broke out in 1998. The couple obtained French nationality in 2005. Jan Groover died a few years later, on January 1, 2012. Thanks to a donation from Bruce Boice, Photo Elysée, in Lausanne, was able to enrich its collection with the Jan Groover collection, consisting of the vast majority of his production but also of unpublished archives of his personal studio. The museum is responsible for its conservation, study and dissemination.
