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Bio
Renée Jacobs began her career as a photojournalist. Her numerous photojournalism assignments included The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer . She received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Outstanding Coverage of the Disadvantaged and her work is in the permanent collection of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Her first book, Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania was originally published in 1986 and re-issued in 2010 to favorable reviews in The New York Times Review of Books and photo-eye . Renée’s work has been exhibited and published around the world. Monographs of her work include Werkdruck (2012/Editions Galerie Vevais, edited and with an introduction by Jock Sturges); Renée Jacobs’ PARIS (2013/Editions Galerie Vevais) and Reves de Femmes (2014/Editions Bessard).
Magazines that have featured Renée’s work include Silvershotz, Adore Noir, PH Magazine, Fine Art Photo, Nude Magazine, Photoicon, French Photo, B&W Magazine, Focus, FHM Turkey and numerous others. Her interviews of Charis Wilson, Araki, Lillian Bassman, Shelby Lee Adams, Douglas Kirkland and others have been published in magazines around the world. She has been featured in numerous anthologies, such as Taschen’s Mammoth Book of Erotic Photography. Her 2009 & 2010 photo calendars went to #1 on Amazon.
Renée Jacobs served as a civil rights lawyer for 15 years before returning to photography.
“Renée Jacobs’ work is the result of a very personal vision and interpretation of women. The female form is her intimate sketchpad. Life is a dream and Renée treats us to exquisite images that are a magical feast for the eyes of the beholder….[With her work, you] are walking past an open door and witnessing beauty … Apparitions and fantasies, their story is left to our imagination . . . Leafing through the pages, you become a voyeur; you experience a guilty pleasure, un léger frisson, catching a glimpse of forbidden private moments.”
— Douglas & Francoise Kirkland, from the Introduction to Reves de Femmes
“Renée’s pictures have a combination of intensity and honesty that I don’t often encounter… She’s making the pictures because she wants to keep them fixed in her head and heart for all time. Her models trust her to tell the truth about them. And she does . . . The truth is of course half hers, a half that is rich in admiration, and affection. For their part, the models are licensed in the moment to be – without limit or constraint. I feel distinctly privileged to present this work to you as a singular example of what can be achieved in the photographic medium…”
– Jock Sturges, from the introduction to WERKDRUCK
“This is a book about Paris, about passion, and about pleasure. Jacobs’ depiction of femininity is both an ancient and a modern one, of women as free spirit – as free as any man. Like Romaine Brooks, Jacobs presents formal elegance, desire, and beauty all coupled within the allure of sexual magic. The joy sings through Jacobs’ lens.”
— Professor John Wood, from the Introduction to RENÉE JACOBS’ PARIS