Claudia Schiffer I

Introduction

Intimacies

During the past 25 years of Swiss photographer Michel Comte’s career, renowned magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Interview, Stern and GQ, have been publishing his images and portraits of the most beautiful women and world’s most significant artists of our time alike. What has gradually evolved, is an astonishing collection of work of great intimacy and understanding; images which allow an exceptional insight into the soul of whom Comte is portraying. Tina Brown, former editor-in-chief of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and bestseller-author, once said: “Regardless whether Michel has a Hollywood celebrity or an orphan from the Third World in front of his lens, he takes both their pictures with the same sincerity and devotion.”

Michel Comte Intimacies is a Homage to women. Whether clothed by the most talented designers from New York to Paris or fragile with delicate bareness, Michel Comte always manages with his lens, to steal a glance behind the façade into the depths of ones character, to reveal that one little secret we were trying so hard to conceal. The foundation, and ultimately also the secret behind every one of his shoots is the dialogue between the photographer and his model: Comte’s photographs are never a planned staging, but much more the result of a silent understanding and mutual respect between two people. Perhaps this is why so many of his most important images he captured not in the cold atmosphere of a studio, but rather in the familiarity and comfort of his own room at the Hotel Ritz in Paris.

Bio

1953	born in Zurich. Trained to be professional art restorer Photography as a profession came to Comte auto didactically
1978	Comte receives his first international photographic assignment for Paris based fashion-labels Ungaro and Chloé
1979	Comte leave Switzerland and moves to Paris
1981	Comte relocates to New York, where he beings to work for the American Vogue, later settling down in Los Angeles. During a fashion shoot Comte meets model Dominique Kamber
since 1981	Editorially Comte works mainly for the publishing group Condé Nast During this time he not only works as a fashion- but also a celebrity photographer, portraying stars from the worlds of fashion, arts, entertainment, music and sports, from Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Kim Basinger and Jennifer Lopez, over Robert Altman, Sting and Jeremy Irons, to Julian Schnabel or Jeff Koons.
since 1999	Michel Comte travels to and works in war-zones and unstable regions such as the Tibet, Iraq, Afghanistan or Bosnia as photographer for the International Red Cross. In collaboration with the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) various Charity-projects develop
2003	Michel Comte photographs the campaign of his first own fragrance: Michel Comte Shared Water
2004	founding of the, Michel Comte Water Foundation, which functions as a charitable foundation under the supervision of the Swiss government, of which the purpose is to help supply and provide possibilities for people in developing countries to have access to clean drinking water
2007	Comte begins his first international film project as director of an Hollywood production

Publications

Magazines:


Vogue Italia

American Vogue

Vogue Germany

Stern

Dutch

Vanity Fair

Interview

GQ Magazine

Exhibitions

Guggenheim Museum in Venice

Centro Internazionale di Fotografia in Verona

Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich