Eli Lotar(1905-1969)

Eli Lotar was a left-oriented stills photographer, motion picture camera operator and cinematographer, and director who used his connections in the Europe of the 192os through 1940s to find work that would express his strong point of view.Of Romanian ancestry, he was first a student of German photographer Germaine Krull and would later collaborate with the Dutch film director Joris Ivens who she lived with.Lotar's special interest was in documenting industrial architecture and working class people.He met poet Jacques Prevert in the late 1920s and lived in the same section of Paris, later working on projects with him.In the late 1930s after travelling through Europe, Lotar left for Switzerland to be with his wife, but returned to France after the War. His career includes work with Bunuel, Pagnol, and Renoir besides Ivens and Prevert.