Trained as a painter and nourished with art history, Patrick Faigenbaum took his first photographs in the early 1970s, while keeping a pictorial approach in his work. Resident at the Villa Medici in Rome from 1985 to 1987, he produced portraits of great Italian families of Florence, Rome and Naples with black and white images that highlight historical and family heritage. His portraits of Roman emperors – photographs of statues – would continue this series. Next came his work on European cities, which shed light on the links between places and their inhabitants. From 1998 to 2008, he immortalized the Sardinian village of Santu Lussurgiu, his wife’s home town. Over time, the neorealist references of his early images were followed by a more intimate look. His works are part of the world’s major public and private collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Musée National d’Art Moderne, at the Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris.

A first survey show of Faigenbaum’s work was presented at the Musée de Grenoble in France in 2008. More recently, a traveling exhibition spanning through his entire career was inaugurated at the Vancouver Art Gallery in March 2013 before being presented at The French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici in Fall 2013 curated by Kathleen S. Bartels, Jean-François Chevrier and Jeff Wall. It will open at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chambéry in France in May 2014. Faigenbaum was the recipient of the prestigious Henri Cartier-Bresson award for his project « Kolkata » in colour, on the changes in the contemporary Indian society. He has been a professor at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris since 2000. He is represented by Nathalie Obadia Gallery in Paris and in Brussels. 

http://www.patrickfaigenbaum.com/