Jean-Marie PERIER, « Chronicle of a dilettante » is the summary of my life

Jean-Marie Périer, we know him as the photographer of the stars of the 1960s.

Jean-Marie Périer is also a director, an author, an actor (…) without make-up or taboo, he tells about the greats he has met and claims his dilettantism.

« Since the age of sixteen, I have not stopped changing jobs, countries, companions, never as a professional, only as an amateur of my professions. »

Jean-Marie Périer began his career as a photographer in 1956, at the age of 16. It was in 1962 that he met Daniel Filippacchi, the producer of Salut les copains. 12 years of collaboration with the magazine followed. “I arrived at the right time. This title was the only way for young people to get away from it all. « 

During this period, many artists are at the start of their careers.
“I have a label on my forehead: photographer from the 1960s. I’m not going to complain, I’ve been everywhere for over twenty-five years thanks to these photos. But I feel a certain nervousness at the idea of ‘to be taken for someone else. We have the right to grow old, to change. « 

In a photo, everyone can look good. It’s the photographer’s job to showcase people, and it’s not difficult as long as you get attached to the person. It’s only about the three-quarterbacks that it’s special: apart from Delon, Françoise Hardy and Mick Jagger, pretty much everyone looks like a gargoyle!

But at one time, it was also said of Johnny. He was an absolutely smart guy, with crazy humor. When he was 20, he told me, « I’d rather they think I’m a jerk, so I see them coming. »

Jean-Marie Périer will be honored this winter 2021-2022 by the city of Saint-Lô (Manche), which presents sixty-one of his photos from the 1960s and 1970s, in large format and outdoors. The Souvenirs d’avenir exhibition is on display until early March 2022.

An incredible place for this village of 2000 inhabitants, where you can meet the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Johnny Hallyday, Alain Delon, Yves Saint-Laurent, Françoise Hardy every day … A permanent exhibition is indeed installed there. 185 celebrity prints, some in very large formats, complemented by a room dedicated to portraits of « people here ».

At the same time as the exhibition in the city of Saint-Lô (Manche), Jean-Marie Périer begins a tour devoted to the book entitled « Chronicle of a dilettante » which is a summary of his life, published on November 3.

Jean-Marie Périer is therefore releasing a new book, Chronicles of a dilettante. He talks about it through his encounters. Who were countless.

« And it is with a happiness I am forever grateful to them that I relate in this collection how the people I have met are the only joys that were truly worth it. Of course, this curious path will never lead me towards what it is agreed to call a « career », it will not have led me far, because jumping happily from one life to another, wanting to be everywhere , I found myself a little nowhere, but what does it matter? One thing is certain, it was worth living « .

On November 20, I had the opportunity to dedicate autographs to my new book, which has been published. In the presence of 60 people at the « Privat » bookstore in Toulouse.

« For a dilettante, only the feeling counts. If he undertakes, it is out of love, even out of passion, and always out of pleasure. Confronted with the obligation to earn his living in order to provide for his family, he has suddenly the nasty impression of being lost in reason, it is then that with relish he is a little despised « .

Privat is a generalist bookstore that offers a choice of more than 60,000 titles on the shelves and over a million on order in bookstores or via the website, founded in 1839, which allowed Jean-Marie Périer to meet his readers. .

“Through this way of looking at existence, I got attached to a lot of random people dating women or men, whatever.
And it is with a happiness which I am forever grateful to them that I tell in this collection how the people I have met remain the only joys that were really worth the effort. « 

Jean-Marie Périer is not at his first attempt. It’s just one of his frequent new lives, releasing a new book year after year, all more or less autobiographical (Meadows of Heaven, Far from Heaven; Already Yesterday; Spoiled Child; Time to Learn to Live).

In the meantime, those who primarily retain the photographer may continue to enjoy his work online. Because every day Jean-Marie Périer publishes a photo and a text on social networks where tens of thousands of subscribers discover or rediscover his work. And his humor tinged with endearing false modesty.

Chroniques d’un dilettante, de Jean-Marie Périer, sortie le 3 novembre 2021 chez Calmann-Lévy. 288 pages, une biographie / autobiographie.

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