Better known as Lucien Hervé, László Elkán was born in Hungary in 1910, but his whole career developed in Paris, where since 1949 he became the official photographer of Le Corbusier. He started out working as fashion designer and later as journalist and photoreporter during the war. Captured by the Gestapo in 1940, he managed to escape and joined the French resistance, adopting the name Lucien Hervé. In 1947 he went back to photography, focussing on architecture. Influenced by German expressionist cinema and the Bauhaus, his images are characterized by marked contrasts and abstraction. Hervé passed away in Paris in 2007, at 97 years of age.

Lucien Hervé’s photographs were on view at the exhibition ‘Constructing Worlds. Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age’ at Madrid’s ICO Museum and are courtesy of Judith Hervé, photographer’s widow. [+]