| Birth name | Michelle Marie Vignes |
|---|---|
| Birth date | c. 1926 – c. 1928 |
| Birth place | Reims, Grand Est, France |
| Death date | October 4, 2012 |
| Death place | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Photographer, photojournalist, photo editor |
| Years active | 1953–2008 |
Michelle Vignes (c. 1926 – October 4, 2012) was a French-born American photographer and photojournalist. She is known for her documentary photography of social movements in San Francisco starting in the mid-1960s.[1][2]
Early life
Michelle Vignes was born in Reims in Grand Est, France; the exact date of her birth has discrepancies, and range between 1926 and 1928.[3][4] During the Nazi occupation she left her home.[5] She did not attend school for photography.[1]
From 1953 until 1957 she worked at Magnum Photos, under photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa in Paris.[1][3][5]
Career
In 1965, Vignes moved to San Francisco, California.[1] Her photos appeared in Time, Life, Vogue, Newsweek, and Ramparts.[1] She had co-founded the International Fund for Photography and Fotovision.[5]
Vignes photo documented the San Francisco's counterculture of the 1960s, draft-card burning protests, the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, the occupation of Alcatraz (1969–1971), the Wounded Knee Occupation (1973), and Oakland's Blues musicians (1980s–1990s).[1][6]
Examples of Vignes photography can be found in museum collections, including at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston;[7] the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University; the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.;[8] the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.;[9] the Centre Pompidou in Paris;[10] and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.[4] Her archives are located at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.[1][11]
References
- ^ Hamlin, Jesse (July 30, 2006). "An American Vision / French photographer Michelle Vignes shoots from the inside". SFGATE. Archived 2022-05-28 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ "Michelle Vignes". ArtSeed. August 12, 2013. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ Rosenblum, Naomi (2000). A History of Women Photographers. Abbeville Press. p. 354. ISBN 978-0-7892-0658-9.
- ^ "Vignes, Michelle". San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ "Death of Michelle Vignes". The Eye of Photography Magazine (L'Œil de la Photographie). 2013-01-01. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ Garchik, Leah (November 9, 2012). "Burners have smarts for tough winter". San Francisco Chronicle. p. 56. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ "Michelle Vignes". The MFAH Collections. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ "Michelle Marie Vignes". Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ "Leaving Wounded Knee". National Museum of the American Indian. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ "Oakland Blues, 1982" (in French). Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou. Retrieved 2025-12-11.
- ^ Maclay, Kathleen (September 11, 2003). "Bancroft Library adds photo archives of Michelle Vignes". UC Berkeley News. Archived June 4, 2023 at the Wayback Machine.