Francis Bruguiere (1879-1945)
Francis Bruguiere was born in San Francisco in 1879 (some say 1880).
In 1905, Bruguière became friends with Frank Eugene and Alfred Stieglitz and became a nominal Photo-Secessionist. A year later, he opened a portrait studio in San Francisco, where he was born, but returned to New York in 1919, to work for Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and the New York Theatre Guild.
In 1923, Bruguière began to photograph shaped or cut-paper designs, dramatically lit to create patterns and movement in abstract forms of light and shadow. He came to London from the USA already known as a photographer and with one completed film Danse Macabre 1922, made with Dudley Murphy, Fernand Leger's collaborator on Ballet Mecanique 1924. In London he produced the first British abstract film, Light Rhythm. It is a strictly abstract work which added new dimensions to these shapes: moving light-sources, a scheme of superimpositions, and the elements of time and music.
Influenced by Synchromist paintings, he continued to work with cut-paper abstractions until 1937.
He died in London (8.V.1945).