The Art of José Nicolas Auction (Live to Live)

José NICOLAS has had several lives. Born in 1956 in Morocco, he travelled through Africa according to his father's military postings before following in his footsteps and joining the parachute units, all the while developing a passion for photography. In 1983, seriously wounded during a mission, he definitively swapped the "eye" of the rifle for that of the camera. A great traveller and instinctive adventurer, he went back into the field to meet men and women at the heart of international conflicts. From 1984 to 2014 he travelled the world for press agencies, covering, among others, the actions of "Médecins du Monde" in Lebanon, Kurdistan, Afghanistan and the rescue of boat people in the China Sea. His images also bear witness to the civil war in Suriname, the revolution in Romania, the conflicts in Chad, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, the Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda... A photojournalist on the lookout, he also knows how to capture the intimacy of the personalities he portrays (Sister Emmanuelle, Michel Portal, François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, Lionel Jospin, François Hollande, Bernard Kouchner, Jean François Deniau...).
In his new life as a freelance photographer, he devotes himself to his author series, publishes books from his archives, pursues his humanitarian commitment by going back to the field for NGOs in Haiti, Togo and Ghana, and brings together young image-lovers and discerning collectors by organising exhibitions of well-known and emerging photographers in his Parisian studio-gallery. His work is exhibited at festivals, represented by gallery owners and has been included in museum and private collections.