Patrick de Wilde: At the heart of the world

With draw­ing as his main inter­est, Patrick Wilde joined the Ecole Supérieure d’Arts Graphiques in Paris, where he dis­cov­ered the art of pho­tog­ra­phy. He became artis­tic direc­tor, stu­dio man­ager and main edi­tor before trav­el­ling the world. Author of thirty books, he has explored Asian reli­gions, wildlife and the great out­doors while col­lect­ing, as a side-line to his reports, aston­ish­ing por­traits that have been the sub­ject of sev­eral books and a good fif­teen exhi­bi­tions in France and abroad. A meet­ing led by Jean-Jacques Cagnart* with an artist pho­tog­ra­pher who refuses to spe­cial­ize and who likes to take his time.

Chas­seur d’Images: What route did you fol­low to become a photographer?

PdeW: After the French bac­calau­reat in Lille, in the north of France, I took the mas­ter class of the Pen­ninghen school in Paris, for­mer Julian acad­emy, that had recently become the Grad­u­ate School of Graphic Arts [ESAG]. It was at the begin­ning of the sev­en­ties. At the end of my fresh­man year, after hav­ing passed all the entrance exams, I could choose what I wanted: Métiers d’Art [Craft­mak­ing], Arts Déco­rat­ifs [Dec­o­ra­tive art], Beaux Arts [Fine arts].… But I couldn’t afford the very expen­sive ESAG. Met Pen­ninghen, its direc­tor, even­tu­ally offered to take me on for free. Hard to refuse, espe­cially as the school was in the neigh­bour­hood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris [which at the time was more friendly and fun than today]. All my bud­dies were there and I loved my teach­ers. They were all great artists, very com­pe­tent and very friendly. It was a won­der­ful time but not always easy. I lived in a small room under the roof close to “La Roquette“, and it was not rare that I had to walk back from school due to lack of money, car­ry­ing my draw­ing folder under my arm. It was a bohemic life! Con­tinue read­ing →