07.08.1910, Hódmezővásárhely -26.06.2007, Paris

Originally born in Hungary as László Elkán, the young Jewish Hungarian-French photographer, like many of his contemporaries in the Hungarian art scene, moved to Paris to pursue his studies at the tender age of nineteen (1929). In Paris he work for the magazine Marianne, and was an active member of the Communist Party During the Second World War, he had to escape Nazi persecution, and soon joined the French Resistance under the pseudonym of Lucien Herve, the name he is known by today.

Herve is known best for his black and white prints of architectural structures. Hervé worked very closely with the infamous Le Corbusier, on one occasion taking over 650 pictures in one day when he first encountered a particular structure. He had an equally powerful effect on Le Corbusier, who re-drew some of his original plans after finding that Herve had shown him a completely different view through his photographs. He wrote to Hervé pronouncing him to have “ the soul of an architect”. Herve also worked with other famous architects like Alvar Aalto and Oscar Niemeyer. However, he is perhaps best known for his photographs of Paris: the UNESCO building, the Louvre pyramid, and those of his own Paris apartment.


The Art of Architecture, the first major survey in London of the internationally renowned architect in more than 20 years begins at the Barbican on the 19th February. Images by Lucien Hervé from our October 2008 exhibition \'Soul of an Architect\' will be part of the exhibition. A limited number of prints are still available- please contact the gallery for details.