Portrait photographique signé

[Algiers, June 1944].

Period gelatin silver print (195 x 240 mm), mounted on straw-colored bristol board, dated “1944” and signed in pencil on the period mount (245 x 320 mm).

Original print by Germaine Krull, signed.
A famous and important portrait of de Gaulle, taken in Algiers by his official Ofic photographer, Germaine Krull, only days before the Normandy landings.

During the general’s visit to Algiers in early June 1944, Krull, who had just been placed in charge of Ofic’s photographic department, was tasked with producing his official portraits. She made two versions of the portrait: one a three-quarter view from the right, the other a full-length figure in medium-long shot. It was this second image, the one offered here, that de Gaulle chose to represent the President of the Provisional Government, and which was subsequently widely circulated.

No print signed directly on the photograph itself is known: these original prints, produced under Germaine Krull’s supervision, were mounted on straw-colored bristol board, dated on the mount at lower left and signed by the photographer in pencil at lower right.

General de Gaulle inscribed several of these prints during the second half of June 1944.

Numerous later reprints, in various formats, were subsequently produced and used by Ofic for the distribution of official portraits. De Gaulle also gave these to his companions in arms and friends during the last six months of that year; these later reprints are no longer mounted on the characteristic straw-colored bristol board of the original printing.

These “posed” photographs of General de Gaulle by renowned photographers are the only such records made before the Normandy landings. The only comparable image is Cecil Beaton’s portrait, taken in London in July 1940 upon de Gaulle’s arrival. The other photographs made in the English capital during the years of exile are the work of studio photographers such as Bertram Park or Georges Fayer.

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