He is the reason why we are familiar with the looks of Sarah Bernhardt, Claude Debussy, Charles Baudelaire, Alexander Dumas, George Sand, Jacques Offenbach, Jules Verne, Emile Zola and dozens of other “great names” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His works form part of the collections of most world-famous museums. FotoFabrika presents some of his most famous portraits to the Bulgarian audience.

A brilliant man, a revolutionary, a brave social idealist, Nadar was the first photographer to take a stand against public opinion, to seek the ultimate development of his ideas (aerophotography) and his tastes (portraiture as a genre in itself). His best pictures are those of people he knew well. His models are isolated, with hardly any background. He never made corrections in his photos. His great portraits form a Pantheon of his times, and at the time of their first public exhibition in 1859 the critics wrote: “A photographer always has the right to be a painter”.