André Steiner. The Body: From Desire to Transcendence

André Steiner came to photography out of passion for his young fiancée and for the sport he loved, and expressed his talent by capturing nude bodies in motion in Paris between the wars.

Born in Hungary in 1901, he was one of the very first users of a Leica in 1924, which he had been given as part of his scientific training at the prestigious Technische Universität in Vienna. He produced a series of nudes of Léa Sasson, known as Lily, his future wife. In 1928, he left Vienna for Paris because of the rise of anti-Semitism in Austria.

Leaving behind his work as a sound engineer, André Steiner chose to devote himself entirely to photography, exploring its possibilities extensively. He opened a studio and worked extensively with the press. His modern experimentation with the medium made him one of the proponents of the German "New Vision" aesthetic, which he helped to spread in France.

A decathlon champion at the World University Games (Universiades) in 1928 and a swimming coach in Vienna at the Jewish sports club Hakoah ("Strength" in Hebrew), André Steiner devoted himself in Paris to sports photography, which was still little explored. He became a specialist in the body in movement and the nude. A supporter of the communist ideal - in 1919 he took part in the short-lived Republic of Councils in Hungary - he saw the photographed body as both an individual and a social manifesto. In the 1930s, this moral conception of the body was shared by VU, for which André Steiner took photographs of sport and dance, helping to forge the magazine's distinctive style.

In 1939, the photographer enlisted in the French air force. Demobilised in 1940, threatened as a Jew and a foreigner, he left Paris for the South of France, before joining the Resistance. After the war, André Steiner obtained French nationality. Back in Paris, he specialised in photography applied to technology and science. He died in Paris in 1978.

Curaotors: François Cheval, avec Nicolas Feuillie

Presented as part of the Cultural Olympiad, this exhibition is made possible by exceptional loans from the Nicéphore Niépce Museum in Chalon-sur-Saône and the Musée national d'art moderne - Centre Pompidou.

Commissaire : François Cheval avec Nicolas Feuillie (mahJ)