Gilles Mora

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Gilles Mora (born 1945 in Vélines, Dordogne) is a French historian, critic and photographer who specializes in 20th‑century American photography. He has edited books on Walker Evans, Edward Weston, W. Eugene Smith, Aaron Siskind and William Gedney, and in 2016 published his own book of photographs, Antebellum. Mora won the Prix Nadar in 2007 for La Photographie Américaine: 1958–1981: the Last Photographic Heroes. He helped found the FRAC Bordeaux regional art fund in 1985 and later directed photography at Éditions du Seuil from 1991 to 2007. He was artistic director of the Rencontres d'Arles festival (1999–2001) and since 2010 has been the exhibition curator at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier, where he lives. Mora co‑founded the magazine Les Cahiers de la photographie and started the journal L'Œuvre Photographique, serving as editor‑in‑chief for both. He taught at the Ecole Normale in Agen earlier in his career. In 1981 he helped create Les Cahiers de la photographie with Claude Nori, Bernard Plossu, Denis Roche and Jean‑Claude Lemagny. Mora's book Antebellum reflects decades of photographing the Southeastern United States after he and his wife moved to Louisiana in 1972 to teach in public schools. The title refers to the Antebellum South. He is married to Françoise, whom he met in high school, and he plays guitar in the rock band Frantic Rollers.