Bernard Lipnitzki was born in Paris in 1930. A cinema fan, he took the examination to French cinema school IDHEC in 1949. As he failed it, he followed his father to Venezuela where the latter opened a photographic studio. In 1950, he performed his military service in Germany, where he served as the regiment photographer and learned all about shooting, developing and printing. After his service, he went to work for 3 years at his uncle, photographer Boris Lipnitzki’s Paris studio. Bored with the theatre shots which were the studio’s specialty, Bernard Lipnitzki was hired by weekly magazine “France Dimanche”, where he photographed Céline, Sagan, Dali, Audrey Hepburn…etc… In October 1956, Bernard Lipnitzki covered the Six-Day War with another reporter from “Paris-Match”; in 1957, he went on for a photographic World tour sponsored by the French National Centre for Foreign Trade. Back in Paris in 1958, he was hired by weekly magazine “Jours de France” and worked there for 4 years, covering the demonstrations of May 13, 1958 in Paris, and De Gaulle’s trip to Algeria. After briefly joining men’s magazine “Lui”, he spent 2 years in the USA as an advertising photographer, where he also freelanced for “Esquire”. He came back to France in 1969 and pursued his career as an advertising photographer and reporter until 1995. In the late 80s, Roger-Viollet acquired a selection of the Bernard Lipnitzki’s production, which it distributes on an exclusive basis.
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