Francois Halard: Design’s Beloved Photographer

TRANSCRIPT

François Halard: Don’t be shy. Don’t be shy. Do it. Experiment. Don’t follow rules. Invent your own rules. Don’t be stuck with yourself, or like with your discourse, you know. Something I really don’t like is when photographers have to have a discourse. You know, “Okay, this is the body of work I’m doing…” You know, if it’s not there in front of you, forget it. It’s immediately strong, you know.

Dan Rubinstein: Hi, I’m Dan Rubinstein, and this is The Grand Tourist. I’ve been a design journalist for more than 20 years, and this is my personalized guided tour through the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food, and travel, all the elements of a well-lived life. If you’re a fan of the podcast, then you know that my professional background before The Grand Tourist was mostly in magazines, especially ones on design and home.

No matter which publication, it was always about documenting the best that architects, decorators, and product designers could create. Instead of shooting models, something like a sultry bedroom or tranquil garden became our stars, as well as the talents who created them. And unlike fashion magazines, where editors and photographers could become household names, those behind the camera in my world tended to stay rather unknown.

But one name has risen above the rest, a rare talent who has been able to successfully sell a series of coffee table books that sell on his name alone, instead of venerating a designer or touting a particular style. François Halard. François’s work often has a sumptuous flavor photographically, and his eye for interiors seems to be on another level.

He doesn’t just take pictures of a room, but captures a bit of the soul of a place. He’s done three books with Rizzoli to date, among many others, and each have become collector’s items and it’s almost impossible not to spot one on the coffee tables of the elite. His books have often taken on a diary-like quality, mixing handwritten notes with Polaroids that an incidental shot of magazines just might not have the space to include. It’s a kind of a visual diary, a captured mood for design lovers that perfectly aligns with our Instagram-addled minds. His fourth book for Rizzoli is a double-volume box set, François Halard Art and Flowers, out this month. It takes this recent mood-generating concept to another level.

For the first volume, Art, Polaroids are blown up and embellished with dabs of paint and wax to create singular creations. In the other volume, Halard took advantage of a time in his life when he was confined to his home with an injury to his arm, where shooting flowers around him in his house in France was just about all he could handle. More on that later.

I caught up with François from his home in Arles to discuss his childhood distaste of growing up in Paris, how he gained his stellar reputation shooting for magazines such as World of Interiors and Décoration Internationale, how he defines beauty, and much more.

I know so little about your early life and tell me a little bit about where you were raised first of all, like where you were born and raised.

I was born and raised in Paris, in a beautiful house, because my parents were interior designers, fabric makers, and furniture makers as well. And they lived in a very beautiful 18th century townhouse.

Left bank or right bank?

Left bank. And then I went to, you know, little school there. I went to the Lycée Henri IV there. Then after I moved not far from there, I went to the École des Arts Décoratifs, École nationale des Arts Décoratifs. So I was born and raised in Paris, but I never really liked it so much.

What didn’t you like about Paris as a child?

The Parisian, I guess.

What didn’t you like about the Parisian?

No, because I was born with a slight speech handicap.

Yeah, I read about that, that you had a hard time communicating as a child.

Yes. So basically I was born at six months, hemiplegic. So I had some sickness after, and I was hardly able to talk normally or to pronounce normally. I was stuttering a lot and kids at school were making fun of me, actually. And I think that’s why I developed at a very early age a passion for visuals and beauty. That was really what helped me to carry my life, actually. I was very reclusive, but I was dreaming of the magazines of my parents.

What magazines did they read?

They did read French Elle. They did read Abitare. They did read Domus.

My mother was working at one point for L’ŒIL, the very famous French beauty, I mean, not beauty, but art magazine. So basically that’s what makes me happy. You know, and also the power of the book, because I did spend a lot of time in the library by myself looking at books about art, houses. I do remember looking at the Katsura in a book on Japan, the famous Kyoto palace. And those make me escape, in a way.

And your parents, they worked in design, but what was their taste like? Was it very traditional?

No, they had a very particular taste, actually. They were, I think, basically the first ones to really mix something very traditional in terms of, you know, sofa, upholstery, with something like Italian design. So they used to sell modern Italian designs like Artemide or Superstudio. All those very highly iconic Italian designs from the 70s. And they always mixed with traditional—with old fabrics and everything. So you could have a very classic upholstery sofa mixed with Etorre Sotsa’s lamp Alchimia, something like that.

They sound very cool. Were they cool? Were your parents cool? 

Cool in terms of design. Let’s put it this way. But they never understood why I really wanted to move to New York and have another life and do things on my own.

And so what did you study at the Beaux Arts School?

At the École nationale des Arts Décoratifs, I was—since I wanted to be early on a photographer, because since we had a beautiful house, there were many photographers coming to our house to make some pictures for magazines. A lot of them. Karen Radkai for American Vogue, I remember quite vividly.

I must have been 12 or 13 or something like that. Or I remember Helmut Newton coming to the house. 

Oh, wow.

Oh, I remember. And I usually, when there were photographers coming at home, I used to escape school and watch them work. For me, it was very interesting to see the process because I already liked the magazine, the photos, but I think it was another chance to be able to see how it is made. So I developed an understanding of how the camera box, a photographic tool, could be at the same time, at the same moment, a protection—because you are behind kind of the thing—and also the power that you might have if you engage with what is in front of you. So at the same time, protection, but evasion in another sense.

And yeah, so I wanted to be a photographer from very early on. And what I did, instead of going on school vacation, I interned since I was maybe 15, during the summers with a photographer—to learn, because I really need to know what was going on. So I did that in Germany with a very famous fashion photographer at the time,  called F.C. Gundlach. And I did it in France. So I did it on a number of occasions.

And your parents let you do this when you were like 16 or 17?

Yeah.

Were they like happy to get rid of you?

No, they were like old school. That it was better to work than to go on vacation.

Okay. Okay. So these were paid internships. You were paid assistanting, basically.

Paid assistant. Maybe I was getting $200, not even $100 for like a month, you know. 

Okay. So they did support you in a sense.

Yes, but it was more slavery than… I mean, it was old school assistant. Like you have to clean the floor, you have to do this, you have to do that. But I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind.

So when actually I went to the School of Art Decoratif, I was the youngest student, actually, before the baccalaureate. I was like 17. And so I learned—I did basically film, film and graphics. I did a new photography because I had a deal with a teacher of the photography class. And we did this, “If you don’t come to my class, I give you A+. Please don’t show up.”

Why? Why did he say that?

Because I guess, I was more technique. So I already knew what I wanted to do. I knew how to print, I knew how to… So I already had my—basically not my vision—but what I was photographing then and what I’m photographing now, it’s actually almost the same. So I didn’t really change the way I look at things. It’s a mix of curiosity with techniques, you know. So just to be able to, to explore what I really have in my mind.

And so you went to school and then you studied film and graphic design, even though you were probably a little bit farther along than most students, because you had so much experience at that time. 

And I left. 

And then you left. Did you graduate? 

No. 

I had a similar experience where I graduated early and then just immediately started working. But you left even earlier, probably. And I think you started working right away at a magazine. Is that true?

Yes, exactly. Because I had a friend of my parents and a friend of mine was a very important editor called Marie-Paule Pelle. And at the time, she was starting a new magazine called Décoration Internationale.

And she said, “I’m launching a new magazine and I need…” No, first I did a portfolio of my parents’ furniture and it was exhibited in a show. And she came in and said, “Oh, Michelle,” that was my mother’s name, “Who did those pictures?” And she said, “Oh, François my son.” And she said, “Okay, can you have him call me tomorrow and show me his portfolio?”

I said yes. So I went. And maybe six months later, she said to me, okay, “I’m doing the cover for Marie Claire Maison and you will be the photographer.” So, basically my first job was actually doing the cover of Marie Claire Maison at 18. At the same time, she was launching a new magazine.

Okay. So she was doing double duty.

Yeah, double duty. And she says, “Okay, I’m launching that new magazine with an art director called Fred Ravilaire, a Swiss art director. And with Fred, for example, Fred was the art director of Hermès magazine. But he was also the art director of Décoration Internationale. So basically from overnight, I was the assistant art director, like doing the layout, helping… I mean, he was doing that, but doing all the techniques as well being the photo editor of the magazine and the staff photographer. 

And how old were you?

I don’t know. I’m born ’61. 20.

So at 20, you were already kind of working on stuff at a magazine that is now quite, you know, legendary for its influence. Can you explain to people—obviously the magazine is not around anymore—can you explain what the magazine looked like and why it was so influential at its time?

Because it was a very high level magazine, but in a very… Marie-Paule paid a lot of importance to the visual. So you had to produce interesting images of interesting places without being too commercial, and especially without being too documentary. I think there is truly no interior magazine like that, because they’re much more conventional, even 20, 30 years later.

It was a lot about freedom. I mean, just send me over. No stylist, no assistant. Camera, a couple of films and that’s it. And you are free to do whatever you wanted. So it was a sign also—which doesn’t exist too much at the moment—a sense of freedom to approach a subject, to do, if you wanted to, a close-up, if you wanted to do a big room, if you wanted to do all ways to find a solution visually, you know.

And obviously, Condé Nast was a big part of your career.

After, because after working for Marie-Paule I received a call from Alex.

Alex Liberman, who was the legendary sort of art director slash editorial director.

Of all the Condé Nast. 

Yes. 

Was a grandmaster of that generation, visually, with Brodovitch for Bazaar and Alex for Condé Nast. 

And, you know, at the time, there used to be an answering machine. I don’t know if you remember.

I am old enough to remember an answering machine, unfortunately.

And then what happened one day, I was in the street and I called my… Remember when you could listen to your answering machine from a phone booth in the street or something like that? And I received a phone call. “Ok, you call back Mr. Liberman in New York.” “Ok, fine.” Why not?

So I called him back and he said, “Ok, François, two things. First, are you interested in doing a story for couture for American Vogue?

Okay, and I bet the answer was yes, correct?

No, the answer was no.

Oh, you weren’t interested? 

No, I was not. I was busy at the time. I said “Ah, I would love to, but I cannot do it on those dates.” And he was very, in French, “Oh, mon cher François, maybe you should look around or ask around. But usually when Mr. Liberman calls you, nobody is unavailable. Call me back in a few days.”

Wow. That’s the confidence that people don’t regularly have anymore in the industry, I don’t think.

Well, and I say, “Okay, fine.” So, you know, of course, I realize who Alex was. And at the same time, he said to me “I’m launching GQ, new version of House and Garden.”

My alma mater.

Yes. And the new version of Vanity Fair. Launching Vanity Fair.

“Are you interested in working for us in New York?” And I say, “You know what? I take the plane tomorrow.” So, I take the plane and come to New York the day after.

Wow. OK.

You know, and he said to me, “François are you interested in working exclusively for U.S. Condé Nast? And I say, yes, I was. I remember that at the time I was not even speaking English because I did Latin and German at school.

But really, I didn’t care. So here I am. And from Chambre de bonne on the sixth floor, woke up with a toilet on the corridor. I went to New York and had you know, a Condé Nast life.

And did you wind up working with Alex Liberman directly?

Yes. It was fantastic working with him.

What was he like? Because obviously he’s a name that I’ve heard throughout my career and he’s a legend. But what was he like as a person?

A gentleman, a gentleman. He was really [unintelligible 21:41]. And I think he liked to be surrounded by French photographers too because he was a great art director in Paris in the 40s, before he had to leave for America because he was Jewish. So basically, that was a moment that I think gives me a confidence that’s really stayed all my life.

Really?

Yeah.

Because anytime you had a question, he’d say “You can call me anytime in the middle of the shoot, anywhere, call me and I will get back to you in the next couple of hours.” Which I think is a very rare relationship that people have now with an art director or creative director worldwide. And at the time, I remember it was as well. Anna Wintour was the creative director of American Vogue. Grace Mirabella was the editor-in-chief. And Alex was editorial director. So it was also quite an amazing moment to be back in New York when all the creativity was really at its height.

What year was that when you moved to New York? 

Mid-80s. 

Okay, so that was… mid-80s in New York was a really crazy time.

Crazy time.

Yeah. Well, tell me about it. What did you do on weekends? You were young. How old were you at the time? In your mid-20s?

Mid-20s, 26, maybe something like that.

Yeah. So you were in your 20s in New York in 1985. 

Yeah.

The go-go, you know, kind of a crazy time in New York.

Like, yes, yes.

What did you do on weekends? What did François Halard do on us on a Saturday night in New York?

No. One of the first jobs that Anna gave to me was actually to go and photograph all the different decor of that nightclub called Area. Area was a very famous nightclub. I was too young for Studio 54, unfortunately. But I did manage to go to Area and especially get paid for it. So it was kind of fun.

That’s amazing.

Nobody could refuse me entry because actually I was there to make a story! And at the time, as well, for Marie Paule, I did photograph Mr. Chow, who had a fantastic collection. And I was a great friend of Tina. Tina Chow is his late wife. She died of AIDS in the late 80s.

So I could go… I go to a couple of first jobs. I go and I meet, you know, I go to see Michael Chow and photograph Tina. And they say “We’re having a party tonight.” And I go to the party, and here I am with Basquiat, with Warhol, with Julian Schnabel. Years after, I went to work with him a couple of times.

So, you know, that was a New York time, the New York period. And I did work a lot. Because between Vogue and Vanity Fair, all the traveling, plus my European magazine, I was basically working every single day. 

(SPONSOR BREAK)

Are you someone who also has a photographic memory? Can you remember… If I said, “Oh, remember that house you shot in Spain for Elle magazine in 1995? Like, do you have a memory where you can remember all of these shoots?

Yeah. 

You do? Okay.

I do. And I have an archive where I have every single photograph I took since I was 16. 

Oh, wow.

Every roll of film, every frame, every polaroid. Almost everything.

How much is that? Is there even a way of counting how many shoots… Have you counted?

No. By thousands, by tens of thousands.

I’m sure.

And it’s in… just the room where I stock my archive, it’s like maybe 80 square meters.

Okay, quite large.

Quite large and maybe four meters high. And it’s from boxes and everything. And yeah.

If I were to ask you… If you were in a university and you were teaching photography students and they said, “Okay, I enter a room with a camera and I need to photograph the room.” What is the François Halard method of approaching photographing a room?

I think no method. I think really no method. I’m doing it totally instantly. I never think about it before. I just arrive in the room and I start, I start doing it. I have absolutely no pre-concept idea of what I’m going to do.

You don’t have a checklist or… 

Never.

Do you work with assistants?

Yeah.

And what do the assistants do before you get into the room? I bet they have a checklist. 

No. 

Do they?

No. No. They, I mean, all my best memorial stories, like, you know [unintelligible 29:29] like Rauschenberg, basically I like working by myself also. I like to be alone or… I like to be either alone or if I do a big campaign—like for Ralph or now for Celine—I have 30 people on board. So I have no, I have really no rules.

I could work with many, many, many, many people, you know? And for example, I do for the Zara Home—for the Vincent Van Duysen Collection, for Zara—I can choose the location. I can organize the way I want.

But since we have a lot of things to do in a very little time, you know, sometimes we are like 30 people on set or I do it by myself. And the next day I could be by myself doing some pictures of an artist, a studio I like. So it’s really the way I feel.

And you had a monograph with Rizzoli about 12 years ago, right? It was I think your first book with them.

Yeah, that was the first number one. And after I did number two and after I did number three. The monograph.

And things changed for you a little bit, didn’t they? When those monographs came out, because people started to recognize not the room or the designer, but they began to recognize you a little bit as a name.

Exactly. Yes. Because at the beginning I was doing more conventional work, like you have to do the cadrage, you know, follow the rules more, a little bit.

Right.

And now I want to follow my rules. So that’s what I think it’s quite important.

So that’s what I think. That’s what I wanted really to publish—my new body of work. Because I think now it’s time, you know. In my professional life, I did many pictures, many stories by the thousands. And I still want to continue. 

And I always wanted to be a painter, actually. The photography came as a happy…

Happy accident. 

Happy accident.

Yes. And now I am exploring new ideas, new ways of doing things. And for me, actually, the turning point of that was when I sold my apartment in New York and just arrived in France for a couple of days in my house in Arles. And then the shift was, COVID happened. Just a week after I left New York. 

And I realized that I was in my house, and I never took enough time there, because it’s my studio, it’s my house, it’s the inspiration. So I started, because I had nothing to do, I mean, professionally, you know, commercially wise. I started to hang around the house and start to do very abstract Polaroids of the house.

And then in a very… I had one of my assistants at the studio, she’s Spanish, Helen. And because of her, I could find a shop in Madrid that still had some Polaroid I was looking to use, and sent me overnight almost, a lot of film and camera. So I was left by myself at the house with that new tool.

And I started to say, why doesn’t my house begin to be my muse in a way. Transforming the way you surround yourself, because it’s so personal. Why not be confident enough to understand that now it’s the main new body of my own work?

Can I ask what kind of Polaroid camera you used at the time?

The same one I used at school in my early age, exactly like a new version of an A670.

The one that kind of looks like a—the classic one that folds up to a little box.

Yeah, exactly.

I have the same one.

So now I have maybe 10 of them because you know, they always broke. Yeah. Anyway, but it’s still fun.

And with that, I found a new liberty. You can use a new tripod. I love the more unfocused it is, the, the better it is for me because people ask me to…focus, the color. So I say, at one point I felt very free.

And since it was just for myself, I really enjoyed it. And also another inspiration for that body of work came with the Cy Twombly Polaroid. Because for me, I say, if I can do paintings, sculpture and photos, why am I not allowed myself to even try? So yeah. So that’s when, after the COVID thing started to get another direction, I guess.

And tell me about this latest book, which has two main parts in it. Two volumes. So it’s kind of two volumes in a single book. So tell me about these two volumes and where did this particular book idea come from?

Because I collected a lot… It came with another lockdown because I had an injury because I was working so much. So I almost lost my tendon.

Uh, the tendon in your shoulder. Tendon.

Yeah. So I couldn’t hold a camera any longer for six months.

Oh gosh. Okay.

And I had four months of reeducation. So basically a year and a half ago, I was out for almost half a year, not able to act commercially. So since I love flowers and I could hold a Polaroid camera with the other hand, I started to photograph flowers and I started to do 20, 30, 40, 100, 200, 500. You know? So I started to have a rhythm, because basically I really cannot stop working.

So you’re a workaholic. 

Yes. So I have to find all the ways, a lot of new challenges, a lot of things just to make my mind and my eyes vibrate still longer.

That’s why, if I get bored with making one kind of photography, I stop. I don’t want to continue doing things I’m not really passionate about. It’s not a question of money, it’s a question of emotion and integrity.

I really want to have that momentum being a moment to enjoy myself as well.

And tell me about these flowers. Did you buy them nearby? Did you choose them? And what was that like for you?

Yeah. You know, I go to the florist and buy and do a bouquet and photograph at home.

And they are like you described before, they’re not perfectly in focus. Some of them have a specific color and like a real sort of emotion to them. They’re not…

Emotion. You know, sometimes it’s just so close. You don’t realize it’s a flower any longer. It’s like a touch of color. It’s a touch of, imagine Monet doing a Polaroid of his flowers garden. That was part of the body of work.

So, you know, it’s just to be free, just to be free to shoot what you… So I started to do a lot of pictures like that for six, almost eight months, and re-photographing also all the objects of my house. That will be part of another book coming in, in two years… and since I could not hold a camera, I did with a Polaroid and I did with my iPhone. So, for example, you know, Juergen Teller is doing a campaign with his iPhone. Why I’m not…Why has nobody shot interiors with an iPhone? Why not?

I’m always open to new, I think to new challenges. Nothing set in stone, nothing. You have to invent your own rules. I think that’s why I was successful as an interior photographer, because I had no rules to follow. I follow my own feelings, basically. That was the rule I did follow.

Um, and the second part of the book is art.

Yes. Some of the part of the book is,—during the same period of time. I’ve also been re-photographing my objects like this, like a statue of mine—and I had a collection of chemical mistakes, you know, with the Polaroid.

Right. Like leaks and things like that, where things don’t come out, the colors don’t come out correctly, or there’s a weird blob on it or something.

Yeah. So something like that. And I say, what, why not use those mistakes or those chemical interventions to be the base of a print. So I will enlarge those Polaroids like one meter 10 by one meter 30. So a big piece, quite large, and use it as a canvas for my own interpretation.

So you’re painting on a blown up Polaroid, essentially.

Exactly.

Or pouring wax or pouring paint on top of it, erasing. So using my own work not to destroy, but to… Rauschenberg’s first real momentum was to use a gift he got from de Kooning and then erase everything. So he asked de Kooning’s permission to erase his own work. So, it’s a mix of that and also it’s a mix of the freedom that Andy Warhol had with the Polaroid.

So for me it was a way to mix experimentation with my own photography. It was a way to re mix photography and intervention on my own work.

And speaking of the evolution of interiors, because you’ve seen the taste and interiors shift over time. I’ve noticed that some of the stories that you’ve told—you talk about this sort of from your parents’ house or from the home of Yves Saint Laurent or whatever—there is this like mix and this eclectic shock of things together that creates something special. Do you think that that is becoming rarer over time?

Yes, of course. 

Compared to today, everything is kind of so planned. 

So bling bling.

Yeah.

So bling bling. That’s why I rarely want to do it any longer. So when I have a new thing, if it’s not a friend or if it’s not somebody I really highly respect in terms of design, I will not do it because it’s too bling bling. This is not my taste. This is not what I want to have my name associated with. Because now basically it’s a taste of new money, and it’s not my taste. And if it’s something I don’t really appreciate, I will not photograph it.

Is there any place on earth that you haven’t photographed that you think one day I’m going to go and shoot it?

Uh…

A bucket list, as we say?

Yes. Very often people ask me that. I think it’s more interesting to follow… to go deeper in something you already have done. So for me, it’s time to go deeper into my own expression.

Like universe within. 

Yes. Like, you know, like Duane Michals always photographing his own things… just too good. I’ve been traveling the world for many, many years.

I was traveling more in my time, more than a flight attendant. I had a few million miles.

Wow. Okay.

And so no, I will only travel for something very precise, or being at home. Either in Arles or in Greece to focus on what I really want to photograph, or re-photograph, or rethinking my environment. So that’s, that’s why it’s important.

And because so much of your work is about beauty, how do you define beauty?

Something… save your life. Something like, nourish your soul. Yeah. And, and, and, and to get inspired by. The rest, I really don’t care. So that’s really what I’m aiming for.

Thank you to my guest, François Halard, as well as to everyone at Rizzoli for making this episode happen. The editor of The Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don’t forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, The Grand Tourist Curator at thegrandtourist.net. And follow me on Instagram @danrubinstein.

Don’t forget you can purchase the first ever print issue of The Grand Tourist online now on our website. Just a few copies left. And follow The Grand Tourist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen and leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Til next time!

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