Born: Claude Joseph Portier Born: Claude-Joseph Portier Other: Claude Portier
Born: Died: Gender: Male Active: Algeria
He became member of the Société Française de Photographie (SFP) in 1863. Photographer active in Algeria in the 1860s with a studio at 9 rue Napoléon ("Maison Soldini"), Algiers. Portier's studio was initially located at 7, rue Napoléon in Algiers, but he had a studio at 14, rue Bab-Azoun and a shop at the 9, rue Bab-Azoun, au coin de la Rue de la Flèche'.
The following forms a part of the biography given for Portier in Ken Jacobson's recently published Odalisques and Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839-1925 (Quaritch, 2007):
'Portier advertised extensively in the newspaper Akhbar for some years from around 1863. He fashioned his enterprise as 'Photographie Nouvelle' and was open every day but Friday (the normal day of closure in Muslim communities). In 1868, Portier, mimicking a fashionable Parisian studio of the period, offered the possibility of 'photographie hippique' (photographs of riders and their horses) and stated that he 'opère lui même'. The latter claim was often made in Paris by photographers who wished to counter clients' complaints that they were waited on by lowly assistants rather than the celebrated photographer whose name was associated with the studio.' (Paul Frecker)
In 1878 he became a correspondent along with Jean Geiser for Giraudon cie of Paris, the world's first photographic agency. He was one of the most talented photographers in Algiers and won a gold medal for his photographs,
[With contributions by Michel Megnin, July 2008]
C. Portier
Portraits
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Genealogy of C. Portier
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