Jeanloup Sieff was born in Paris in 1933 to parents of Polish descent. He first developed an interest in photography when his parents gifted him a camera on his fourteenth birthday. When he was photographing newly met girls during his holidays at Zakopane, he became obsessed with photography.
He studied photography at the Vaugirard School of Photography in Paris, then moved to the Vevey School in Switzerland. He began working as a freelance reporter by 1954, abandoning his brief interest in cinema. Sieff began shooting fashion photography in 1956 and joined Magnum Agency in 1958. While working for them, he traveled to Italy, Greece, Poland, and Turkey. In the 1960s, he lived and worked in New York, where he worked for Esquire, Glamour, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar, becoming extremely popular in the United States.
Jeanloup Sieff was an expert in the photographic art of high fashion, acclaiming a commitment to the frivolous and superficial. He is regarded as one of the top fashion, portrait, and art photographers. His honors include the Prix Niepce, the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in Paris in 1981, and the Grand Prix National de la Photographie in 1992. He photographed several famous personalities including, Jane Birkin, Yves Montand, Alfred Hitchcock, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Yves Saint-Laurent, and Rudolf Nureyev.
Sieff died in Paris in 2000 at the age of 66. He has a daughter, Sonia Sieff, who is a well-known photographer as well. Below are some fabulous photos of celebrities and famous people from the 1960s by Jeanloup Sieff.
