Lucien Lorelle (December 29, 1894 – February 26, 1968) was a French portraitist, publicist, humanist photographer, author, painter, a member of Le Groupe des XV and founder of the photography company Central Color.
[1] In 1920 Lorelle found work as the administrator of the Manuel brothers’ art portrait studio, but did not practice photography.
In 1927, having taught himself to use a camera, with his brother-in-law Marcel Amson he founded a portrait business, the Studio Lorelle, 47 Boulevard Berthier, Paris,[2] asking Czech Jaroslav Rössler in December to join the enterprise as an advertising photographer just as the latter had planned to migrate to the United States.
From the late 40s Lorelle experimented with Surrealism, especially in his nude studies, and the imagery was sometimes reused in advertising, like his Femme en morceaux in which a statue of a woman lies broken, which was used in a 1948 magazine promotion for Odorono deodorant with the caption; "Un souffle suffit à renverser l'idole" ("One sniff is enough to topple the idol.
On February 26, 1968 Lucien Lorelle died in Megève,[1] leaving a body of photographic negatives, paintings, drawings, montages and innumerable texts as well as many books dealing with photography in its technical and artistic aspects.