Jacques-André Boiffard
Encyclopedia
Jacques-André Boiffard is a French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 photographer, born in Paris, lived in Roche-sur-Yon. He was a medical student until 1924 when he met André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....

 through Pierre Naville
Pierre Naville
Pierre Naville was a French Surrealist writer and sociologist. He was a prominent member of the 'Investigating Sex' group of Surrealist thinkers.In politics, he was a Communist and then a Trotskyist, before joining the PSU...

, a Surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 writer, and childhood friend.

In the mid-1920s, Boiffard decided to dedicate himself to research in the Bureau of Surrealist Research
Bureau of Surrealist Research
The Bureau of Surrealist Research, also known as the Centrale Surréaliste or "Bureau of Surrealist Enquiries" was a Paris-based office in which a loosely affiliated group of Surrealist writers and artists gathered to meet, hold discussions, and conduct interviews in order to "gather all the...

, writing the preface with Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...

 and Roger Vitrac
Roger Vitrac
Roger Vitrac was a French surrealist playwright and poet.Born in Pinsac, Roger Vitrac moved to Paris in 1910. As a young man, he was influenced by symbolism and the writings of Lautréamont and Alfred Jarry, and he developed a passion for theatre and poetry...

 to the first issue of La Révolution surréaliste
La Révolution surréaliste
La Révolution surréaliste was a publication by the Surrealists in Paris. Twelve issues were published between 1924 and 1929....

. Preferring photography to literature, he became Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...

’s assistant. During the 1920s, he took portraits of the English writer Nancy Cunard
Nancy Cunard
Nancy Clara Cunard was a writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class but strongly rejected her family's values, devoting much of her life to fighting racism and fascism...

 and photographs of Paris which Breton used to illustrate his novel Nadja
Nadja
Nadja may refer to:* Nadja , 1928 surrealist novel by André Breton* Nadja , 1994 vampire film by Michael Almereyda* Nadja , Canadian drone doom metal side project of Aidan Baker* Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violinist...

. In 1928, Boiffard was abruptly expelled from the movement for taking photographs of Simone Breton.

From 1929, Boiffard was closely associated with Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...

 and Documents, in which his best-known work was published, illustrating articles such as Bataille’s "The Big Toe" (1929, issue 6), Robert Desnos
Robert Desnos
Robert Desnos , was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.- Biography :...

’ "Pygmalion and the Sphinx" (1930, issue 1), and Georges Limbour
Georges Limbour
Georges Limbour was a French writer of prose and poetry.He was a member of the Surrealist Movement in Paris during the 1920s, but was expelled in 1929. Before his association with André Breton and the Surrealists, Limbour co-edited, along with Roger Vitrac and René Crevel, the avant-garde review...

’s "Eschyle, the carnival and the civilized" (1930, issue 2). In 1930, he contributed to Un Cadavre
Un Cadavre
Un Cadavre was the name of two separate surrealist pamphlets published in France in October of 1924, and January of 1930, respectively.-Pamphlet of October 18th, 1924:...

, a pamphlet that attacked Breton.

Boiffard then set out on a world tour with fellow photographer Eli Lotar
Eli lotar
Eli Lotar was a French photographer. Lotar was born the son of a celebrated poet in Romania in 1905. He became a French citizen in 1926 and met the German photographer Germaine Krull. He took part in many exhibitions with Krull and photographer André Kertész...

. Although partly financed by museologist Georges Henri Rivière
Georges Henri Rivière
Georges-Henri Rivière was a French museologist, and innovator of modern French ethnographic museology practices.Rivière studied music until 1925, when he began museum studies at the Ecole du Louvre, from which he graduated in 1928. During the following years, he cared for the D...

 and the Vicomte de Noailles the trip came to an early end in Tangiers. During the political turmoil of the 1930s, Boiffard was a member of the Groupe Octobre led by Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...

, and he exhibited his work as part of the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires
Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires
The Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires was a French association of revolutionary artists and writers which first existed between 1932 and 1939...

.

Following his father's death in 1935 Boiffard resumed his studies to earn a doctorate in medicine in 1940 specializing in radiology, once and for all putting an end to his career as a photographer.
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