Romy Schneider photographed by Helga Kneidl, Paris, 1973. For original format and size, visit the Kai Middendorff Galerie
When I asked artist Marianna Gefen to create a portrait of Romy Schneider, she made this abstract painting in two versions, describing it as being “inspired by the mysterious aura, grace and charisma which surround Romy Schneider to this day. She is untamed beauty, determined but fragile, flawed yet real. With different layers, colors, abstract shapes and transparency I wanted to represent these aspects.”
It was cinema that introduced us to Romy and it was in Claude Sautet’s films that Romy came alive in. Her presence on screen was unequalled. Romy, who became the impersonation of “the perfect French seduction”, Romy whose “photogenic power and beauty represented at least for a decade the image of femininity on the big screen”, Romy who taught Sautet that “women were courageous, vivacious”, because before he met her, “he didn’t know how to direct actresses and female characters didn’t interest him so much, except as objects,” Graziella Sautet, his wife, recalled. Incandescent, implacable, imperious, childishly humorous, fiercely independent and free.
In May 1973, the renowned theatre photographer Helga Kneidl spent three full days with Romy Schneider in Paris. Three days in which the photographer shot six films of Romy, the only photographs she withheld when the Deutsche Theatermuseum in Munich acquired Kneidl’s theater photographs and portraits, including all her negatives. Mainly shot in black and white, these photographs are some of the best photographs ever taken of Romy Schneider, of her childish magic and mystical beauty. A timeless tribute, a rare intimacy. These images are about more than pure physical beauty, they go deep into the personality and true beauty of Romy, the ultimate beauty: organic, universal, genuine. Helga Kneidl was a photographer who not only shared the passion of a profession with Romy Schneider, the performing arts, but a photographer who cared, who was curious and aware of people and their surroundings. And when you spend enough time with someone you care about, you start to get a sense of their inner truth. A confiding connection between two souls was created, an intimate communion, and Kneidl was professional enough and lucky enough to be there and capture this inner life movement, this feeling of existence, and share this incredible visual narrative that will not age.
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