Obituary: Yan Morvan

His first published photograph appeared exactly 50 years ago in the daily newspaper, Libération. Morvan was considered one of the most influential of French reportage photographers – he and his Leicas spent over fifty years in the thick of the action. And he left no story uncovered, repeatedly putting his life in danger. In addition to working as a reporter in various war and crisis zones, such as the Lebanon war, the Northern Ireland conflict, the Iraq war and, most recently, in Ukraine and Israel, his research on the fringes of society led to series on criminal gangs and rocker gangs. He was seriously injured a number of times, and was also arrested, kidnapped and beaten up. A restless life in the fast lane. “He was a formidable character, an incredible provocateur, an erudite aesthete and, above all, a rare and passionate photographer,” is the way Jean-Jacques Naudet describes the photographer in his online journal L’Œil de la photographie. “All subjects appealed to him, especially the most dangerous and the most shady, which sometimes brought him to the brink of catastrophe.“

Morvan leaves behind an enormous, multi-layered body of work covering wars and their victims, the French banlieue, motorbike gangs, skinheads, punks, and sex workers. He also attended the wedding ceremony of Prince Charles and Lady Di in July 1981 in London, but, of course, not as a court reporter, but primarily focussing a critical eye on the surroundings of the celebrations. He received many recognitions for his work, including the Robert Capa Award and two World Press Photo Awards. He published over twenty photo books; however, in order to cover the entire breadth of his oeuvre, he began – in collaboration with a Paris publishing house – to publish regular, small editions of themed publications three years ago. According to Naudet, “He was obsessed with images. He loved being published and sometimes when he wasn’t, he would self-publish his work.”

Yan Morvan passed away from cancer on September 20, 2024.