Riviera cocktail

Finally back in print: Edward Quinn’s wonderful collection of 1950s stars and starlets on the French Riviera



No other photographer documented the societal and cultural life on the Côte d’Azur of the Golden Fifties so thoroughly, wide awake and with such a fine sense of irony as the Irishman Edward Quinn (1920-1997). In Quinn’s time, protagonists on the French Riviera are film stars and artists, jazz musicians, chansonniers, the aristocracy, shipping magnates, film directors, politicans, pin-up girls and the literati. Edward Quinn moves about freely with artfulness and charm in this glitz-and-glamour world and his view of it is unmistakable. Quinn does not compromise his subjects and time and again allows the observer to anticipate the private side: a young and equally unknown Brigitte Bardot, Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas leaving a night club, Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier at their first meeting, Audrey Hepburn at the beginning of her career, Sophia Loren in her hotel suite. In a comparable measure, Pablo Picasso allowed no other photographer the same access to his private life as to his longtime friend Eward Quinn. Enjoy this delightful, photographic cocktail of individual eloquence.