André Perlstein (1942-) passed his School Certificate at the age of 14 and worked as a mason, carpenter, an apprentice sailor on oil tankers and courier, before photography became a career.
In 1958, he joined the air force and became an aerial photographer. There, he met Jean-Marie Cavada who, during his leaves in Paris, made him take pictures of the stars of that time for his newspaper “Télé Magazine”. Among those celebrities were, Eddy Mitchell, Mireille Mathieu, Johnny Halliday.
In 1966, he left the army and went to Paris. He worked as a printer for Pictorial Service and then became assistant to Michel Holsnyder, an advertising and fashion photographer, and to the Fillipacchi Group.
In 1967, he joined the Kipa agency, specializing himself in event photography. He got his first press card, n°24548. He contributed to the magazine “Petit Echo de la Mode”. He also photographed many actors who became famous later, such as André Dussolier, Jacques Villeret, Isabelle Adjani, Bernard Haler.
In 1968, he joined the French magazine “L’Express” as a freelancer. He took part in the Prague Events, then as an employee he photographed the news of the time via political figures, artists, important CEOs, along with famous journalists such as Jean François Kahn, Danièle Heymann, Jean-François Bizot, Michèle Cotta or Jacques Derogy.
In 1972, he left “L’Express” and became a fulltime freelance photographer. He worked for the French newspaper “Le Point” for 8 years. He was a set photographer for Claude Lelouch, Jean-Pierre Melville, Claude Pinoteau and Daniel Vigne. He photographed some ballets by Maurice Béjart and the Maison Yves Saint Laurent. He worked for different agencies such as Gamma, Sygma or Contact (USA). He created the agency “Sport Agence Magazine” and later he illustrated a large part of the French newspaper “Musiques”, under the direction of Denis Jeambar. He became photographer for all the great magazines like Glamour, Votre Beauté or Vanity Fair (USA), Elle.
His photographs are exclusively distributed in the UK by TopFoto, via the Roger-Viollet Agency, Paris.