About the Author

Jean-Francois Jonvelle was born in the Provencal town of Cavaillon in 1943. "When I photograph a woman," he used to say, "I want her to know that she is the most beautiful woman on earth, because a women who feels beautiful really is the most beautiful woman in the world." Jonvelle worked as assistant to American photographer Richard Avedon beginning when he was 20, then turned freelance. He always worked around women, admitting freely that his only subject was the women he loved. In the 1980s Jonvelle rose to prominence as the photographer for a publicity campaign that changed the face of French advertising and gave rise to the popular French catchphrase, 'Demain j'enleve le bas' ('Tomorrow the bottom comes off'). His photography for campaigns by Huit, Levi's, Barbara and Princesse Tam Tam was also to prove extremely influential. In 1998, in preparation for his last film, Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick was considering the question of the most 'real' way to film women. Having found one of Jonvelle's books, he invited him to come to Los Angeles with some of his pictures so that they could talk about them. And so it was that the scene set in the leading man's bathroom, with Nicole Kidman's character sitting on the toilet, was directly inspired by a Jonvelle photograph. Jonvelle died in 2002.