NEW YORK, NY.- As part of its popular series The Art of Sex & Seduction, the French Institute Alliance Française, New York’s premiere French cultural center, presents Seducing the Lens, the first New York exhibit of the work of legendary French photographer Jean-Daniel Lorieux, on view at the FIAF Gallery Thursday, October 30 through Saturday, December 6.

Blending eroticism and humor, Jean-Daniel Lorieux’s work for the likes of Vogue, Dior, and Lanvin has turned fashion photography into sensual iconography. Like a third eye, his camera wanders through a world of exquisite beauty. His lens lingers, worshiping women from dawn to dusk. Splendid, ethereal, and statuesque, they inhabit a universe of Lorieux’s creation.

One of the greatest French photographers of his generation, Lorieux began his career during his military service in Algeria, where he documented the horrors of war in a series of uncompromising photographs. Upon his return, he threw himself into fashion photography, rejecting the darkness of war for lighthearted, cheerier subjects. In the late 1960s, Lorieux left the confined spaces of the studios. Preferring natural sunlight to artificial strobe lights, he became one of the first photographers to crisscross the globe, seeking out exotic and idyllic locations for his photo shoots. There, instead of posing, top models played, laughed, and provoked.

Fascinated by women with sublime, striking physiques, Lorieux’s work is marked by luminous, high-contrast color, graphic shapes, and large expanses of blue. Imbued with joie de vivre and inspired by pop art and the works of Andy Warhol and David Hockney, Lorieux’s photos of the 1970s and 80s became emblematic of an era marked by optimism, insouciance, and an insatiable thirst for liberty.

Today, Lorieux remains much sought after in the world of fashion photography and visual arts, with recent work in L’Officiel and Harper’s Bazaar.

One of the greatest photographers of his generation, Jean-Daniel Lorieux has contributed to prestigious fashion magazines such as Vogue and L’Officiel for over two decades. Inspired by the elegance of Vogue and the lifestyle of Richard Avedon, Lorieux has created some of the most beautiful and successful ad campaigns for European designers and fashion houses including Dior, Lanvin, Paco Rabanne, Nina Ricci, Céline, and Pierre Cardin, featuring top models like Stephanie Seymour, Claudia Schiffer, and Karen Mulder.

Jean-Daniel Lorieux’s high-contrast style imbues models and fashion with a subtle and distinguished eroticism. Much sought after for his celebrity portraits, Jean-Daniel Lorieux has photographed President of France Jacques Chirac, Nelson Mandela, Prince Albert of Monaco, Steve Jobs, David Lynch, Mick Jagger, and actresses Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani, among many others.

His photography has been exhibited all over the world, including Dallas, Houston, Tel Aviv, Monaco, Luxemburg, Georgia, at the Sursok Museum in Beirut, Shanghai Photo, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, and the Musée des Beaux Arts in Brussels. In France, among others, he has exhibited his work at Opera Dumonteil Galery, Galerie Alexandre Leadouze, and l’Eclaireur Hôtel Royal Monceau in Paris, the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, and the Festival de la Photographie de Pierrevert.

In 2008, the Russian philanthropis Eugene Yakovlev commissioned Jean-Daniel Lorieux to illustrate Mikhail Bulgakov’s masterpiece The Master and Margarita in a series of photographs featuring Isabelle Adjani. The series was presented in Paris and Moscow for the opening of the Year of Russia in France (L’année de la Russie en France).

On top of this photography work, since 2000 Lorieux has immersed himself in portrait painting, and his work has been exhibited in several galleries around the world.