Martine Franck

Born in Belgium in 1938, Martine Franck grew up in the United States and in England. She studied art history at the University of Madrid and at the École du Louvre in Paris. After a trip to the Far East with Ariane Mnouchkine in 1963–64, Franck worked at Time-Life in Paris as an assistant to the photographers Eliot Elisofon and Gjon Mili. Her friendship with Mnouchkine also led her to follow the Théâtre du Soleil from its beginnings in 1964 until her death.

After joining the Vu Photo Agency, Franck contributed to the founding of the Viva agency in 1972. She took many portraits of artists and writers, including a noteworthy series of women for Vogue. She undertook more far-reaching work for the French Ministry of Women’s Rights in 1983. That same year, she became a full member of Magnum Photos. From 1985, Franck collaborated with the International Federation of Little Brothers of the Poor, a non-governmental organization which cares for the elderly and outcasts of society. It was in 1993 that Franck first visited the island of Tory, off the northwest coast of Ireland. There, she studied the daily life of a traditional Gaelic-speaking community separated from the mainland.

She next traveled to Asia to meet Buddhist Tibetan children in India and Nepal. With the help of Marilyn Silverstone, a former member of Magnum Photos who became a Buddhist nun, she encountered the Tulkus, the young lamas who are thought to be the reincarnations of ancient great spiritual masters.

In 2002, she created, with Henri Cartier-Bresson and their daughter Mélanie, the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris, where she became President in 2004.

Martine Franck died in Paris on August 16, 2012.