PEPE FERNÁNDEZ

At an early age he started studying piano and developed an eagerness for reading. In 1945 he met the poet Juan Rodolfo Wilcock who got him in touch with the intellectual elite from Buenos Aires. Invited by Silvina Ocampo in1954 he travelled to Europe. Two years later he returned to Buenos Aires where he started working for Editorial Abril first as a photonovel screenwriter and then as an editor for Claudia magazine. In 1963 he returned to France where he established definitely where he led a bohemian life. In the 70 ́s Pepe published his first literary chronicles at the Argentine magazine Semana gráfica and started working as a correspondent for Abril. For illustrating his articles, he started making his first professional photographs. By the end of the decade his images were not only published in Argentinian magazines but also in important European publications. He transformed into an inescapable portraitist for Argentinian and Latin-Americans actors, musicians, artists and writers, who visited Paris. The portraits were never made in studios, his charsima and sensibility allowed him a sense of intimacy and complicity with the portrayed that is revealed in the images. Beside his portraits and journalism coverage he developed a number of naked male series and scenes captured in Paris streets and Cafés.
He exhibited his works in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, México and Budapest. In 1991 he presented a solo-show exhibition in Buenos Aires, at the Fotogalería del Teatro General San Martín, organized by Sara Facio. In 2004 his last solo-show took place at the Centro de Arte Moderno de Madrid.