Lise Sarfati

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Lise Sarfati (born 12 April 1958 in Oran, Algeria) is a French photographer and artist known for portraits of elusive, often young people who resist being pinned down, and for exploring how feminine identity can be unstable. Her work also looks at how people relate to cities, with major projects in Russia and the United States.

She grew up in Nice, France, and says its color-rich environment influenced her sense of color. After a trip to the Soviet Union at 15, she became interested in Russian culture. She earned a Master’s degree in Russian Studies from the Sorbonne in 1979 and, in 1986, became the official photographer for the Académie des Beaux Arts. From 1989 to 1998 she lived in the Soviet Union and Russia, photographing urban ruins and young people, which led to Acta Est (2000, Phaidon).

In 2003 she photographed American adolescents in cities like Austin, Asheville, Portland, New Orleans, Berkeley, Oakland and Los Angeles. The book La Vie Nouvelle (2005) collects these images; its title links to Dante. She continued with projects Austin (2008), On Hollywood (2010) and She (2012), and in 2017 published Oh Man, a series of detailed tableaux of lonely men in downtown Los Angeles using a large-format camera. One image from Oh Man was chosen as the official visual for Paris Photo 2017.

Critics describe her work as quietly mysterious, blending portrait, snapshot and staged scene. She has won the Prix Niepce (1996) and the ICP Infinity Award (1996). She was a member of Magnum Photos from 1996 to 2011 and is represented by Rose Gallery in Los Angeles. Her work has even influenced cinema; Sam Levy has cited her as an inspiration for Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017).