Biography of Marc Vaux

Marc Vaux was born on February 19, 1895 in Crulai, Normandy where he grew up and was trained as a car­penter. But, the First World War dis­rupted his life and he was drafted in December 1914. He was injured in Auberive in October 1915 and was pre­vented from resuming his pro­fes­sion [15] Discharged with dis­ability pen­sion, Vaux arrives to Paris and set­tled in 23 Avenue du Maine [16]. Encouraged by his wife [17], he began his career as a pho­tog­ra­pher. Equipped with a view camera that he kept using for the rest of his life [18], he started taking por­traits of his neigh­bours on Avenue du Maine, as well as sol­diers on leaves, notably Americans who dis­em­barked at the Montparnasse sta­tion, but also pro­ducing large repro­duc­tions of pho­tographs of sol­diers who died in the front for their fam­i­lies. In 1918, he cap­tured the bursts of joy in Place de la Concorde and sold the prints for few cen­times [19].

Thanks to the color mer­chant from whom he bought his plates and his pho­to­graphic equip­ment, he met the sculptor Charles Desvergnes winner of Prix the Rome and author of var­ious memo­rials who was looking for someone to pho­tographs his works. The first pho­tographs made by Marc Vaux were of Desvergnes’s sculp­tures that he liked very much. Moreover Desvergnes con­tinued to work with Marc Vaux and rec­om­mended him to his fellow artists [20]. Two of Marc Vaux’s first clients were his neigh­bors of 21 Avenue du Maine- Marie Vassilieff and Maria Blanchard [21] who intro­duced him to Parisian avant-garde artists: Juan Gris, André Lhote, Jacques Lipchitz, Ortiz de Zarate, Jules Pascin – which he pho­tographed his ate­lier after he com­mitted a sui­cide in 1930. Beside the ate­lier and the works of art, Marc Vaux was also a pho­tog­ra­pher of exhi­bi­tions. He pho­tographed Salon des artistes Français (exclu­sively), Salon des Indépendants, Salon d’Automne as well as Salon des Tuileries. In 1927 he moved to 114bis Vaugirard St., into a half-tim­bered home of which he rented part of to many artists [22].

In 1939 he was one of the pho­tog­ra­phers respon­sible of making reportage of the removal of the Louvre. During World Was II, he joined the resis­tance: he rented under his name a room where he hid many of the resis­tance fighters wanted by the Gestapo [23], and assured among other things, the devel­op­ment and the illegal dis­tri­bu­tion of a pho­tograph of General de Gaulle [24].

After the war, in 1946, he opened the Foyer d’Entre Aide aux Artistes in 89 boule­vard du Montparnasse [25]. Besides its func­tion as a can­teen that aids the artists with afford­able meal and drink, this Foyer allowed them to exhibit their work for free. To raise money for its main­te­nance, Marc Vaux orga­nized, almost each summer, The Night in Montparnasse (La Nuit de Montparnasse) in Salle Huyghens, in which the elec­tion for the most beau­tiful model took place. But, in 1963 the future of the Foyer was dark­ened over: Marc Vaux received the first expul­sion order from the owner of the place, claiming that the phi­lan­thropy work decreases the rental and com­mer­cial value of the prop­erty.

The trial lasted seven years and many public fig­ures got involved, including General de Gaulle who took the side of Paris pre­fec­ture that sug­gested that in 1968 the Foyer would be relo­cated in 107 Vercingétorix St. At last, in May 30, 1970 Marc Vaux decided to leave the premise of boule­vard Montparnasse and to settle tem­porarily the Foyer in his own house.

In 1948, he became head of Paris-Montparnasse, a magazine that was founded in 1929 by Henri Broca, with whom he col­lab­o­rated on a reg­ular basis as a pho­tog­ra­pher. He changed its name to Montparnasse – Carrefour des arts, but this magazine only issued eight num­bers before its clo­sure in 1950 [26].
In 13 of October 1951, Marc Vaux opens the Museum of Montparnasse (Musée du Montparnasse) in 10 Arrivée St. [27], in the former loca­tion of the Académie du Montparnasse. He exhib­ited paint­ings, given by artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Kisling etc. but also let­ters and doc­u­ments that will become of his­tor­ical impor­tance; like the invoice for the burial of Modigliani, Pascin’s will, and of course his own pho­tographs. But this museum was short lived and it closed after few years, a victim of the changing neigh­bour­hood [28].

In 25 of February 1971, Marc Vaux had an art attack in the street and died. The end of his life was over­shad­owed by the death of his own son, but also due the clo­sure of the Musée du Montparnasse and his Foyer.