Claude Pavy

A musician by profession, Claude Pavy is a self-taught photographer. Although he works mainly in black and white, he does experiment occasionally with colour; four such images are included in the current exhibition. Between 1969 and 1973, he enjoyed a prolific period of photographic activity, during which time he printed his photographs in the kitchen. Professional work as a studio musician, guitarist, and orchestrator of songs, film music, and advertising jingles, took him away little by little from photographic creation.

In his occupation as a musician, Claude Pavy has worked with such renowned singers, musicians, and composers as Yves Montand, Barbara, Georges Moustaki, Maxime Leforestier, Pierre Perret, Michel Legrand, and Ennio Morricone. In parallel with this activity, he has participated in numerous projects and concerts of contemporary music with L’Itinéraire (of which he is a founder member), the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Ircam), the National and Philharmonic Orchestras of Radio France, the Orchestra of Paris, the  Paris, Lyon, and Brussels Operas, various music festivals, including Avignon, Darmstadt, Almeida (London). In 1985, he created at the Ecole Nationale de Musique et de Danse d’Evry the first class in Electric Guitar in France as preparation for the Diplôme National (DEM). Since 1986, he has turned to the activity of soloist. Composers such as Alain Bancquart, Tim Brady, Hugues Dufourt, Betsy Jolas, Tristan Murail, Ichiro Nodaïra, Yoshiisa Taira, Roger Tessier have composed works for him.
Claude Pavy returned to creative photography in 2005, thanks to the discovery of negative scanners. He still uses a film camera, developing his films as before, but he now scans the resulting negatives, makes minor adjustments using Photoshop, and completes the production process with a digital printer, a technique which he masters better than the traditional enlarger.

His images are often nostalgic, due to the passage of time and to changes in the environment, happy or otherwise, images which are always graced by a gentle but critical eye.