Pierre Gaudard

Pierre Gaudard

Pierre Gaudard, photographer (b at Marvelise, France 6 Oct 1927; d at France 22 July 2010). Gaudard, who immigrated to Canada in 1952, became one of the most respected documentary photographers in the country by the 1960s. Gaudard was known for his uncompromisingly direct yet humorous black and white studies of labourers, prisoners and others. Briefly a member of the Groupe d'action photographique during the early 1970s, he was prominent in the movement of socially engaged documentary photography in Québec.

Gaudard worked extensively as a freelance photojournalist for Time, Châtelaine, Week-end and other magazines as well as for the Canadian government. He was also closely associated with the NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA's Still Photography Division, for which he produced several photo-stories and contributed to such publications as Canada: A Year of the Land and Call Them Canadians during the 1960s. In the late 1960s, Gaudard spent two years photographing Québécois workers for the acclaimed NFB exhibition (1971) and publication (1972) entitled Les Ouvriers (The Workers). An assignment for Time magazine in 1975 led to an extended photographic study of the Canadian penal system and an equally acclaimed body of work, Les Prisons. During the 1980s, Gaudard continued to photograph actively. He produced a lyrical and witty series on his country of birth, Retour en France, and experimented with both colour and Polaroid technology. After the 1980s, his photographs continued to be exhibited extensively across Canada as well as in France. In the 1990s, Gaudard returned to France to live.