Pierre Molinier

Pierre Molinier born 13 April 1900 (d. 1976)

Pierre Molinier was a painter, photographer and 'maker of objects'. He was born in Agen (France) and lived his life in Bordeaux. He began his career by painting landscapes, but his work turned towards a fetishistic eroticism early on.

Molinier began to take photographs at the age of 18, and started his erotic production around 1950. With the aid of a wide range of specially made 'props' – dolls, various prosthetic limbs, stiletto heels, corsetry, dildos and an occasional confidante – Pierre Molinier used his own body as the basis for surreal and fantastic distortions of the human form, blurring sexuality and gender and ultimately producing a large body of photographic work. Most of his photographs, photomontages, are self-portraits of himself as a woman.

By combining costume, props, photography and photomontage he stepped beyond mere photographic representation of himself and his models to create a bizarre and distorted world of gender-confused fetishism and auto-eroticism.

He began a correspondence with André Breton and sent him photographs of his paintings. Later Breton integrated him into the Surrealist group. Breton organised an exhibition of Molinier's paintings in Paris, in January-February 1956.

In 1976, as his health began to decline, Pierre Molinier lay on his bed in front of a mirror, masturbated and committed suicide by shooting himself. The staging of his death initially led police to suspect he had been murdered but it seems that his death was Molinier's final creative act.

Pierre Molinier's enigmatic photographs influenced European and North American body artists in the early 1970s and continue to engage artists, critics, and collectors today.