Oriental (Erotic) Postcards ~ Jean Geiser

Jean (Théophile) Geiser

* April 7th 1848, La-Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland)
† September 7th 1923, Algier (Algeria)

Jean Geiser, a photographer in Algier, was known mostly for his oriental and erotic photographs. Publishing his photographs on numerous postcards supported his success..
His parents had moved to Algeria in the 1850s. After the death of his father Lucien Jacob (†1852) and his two brothers (Louis Frédéric,†1868; Lucien James, †1872), both working in the atelier of his mother Julie Geiser and her partner Jean-Baptiste Antoine Alary, his mother Julie returned to Switzerland. Jean Geiser founded his own photographic atelier in Algier in the late 1860s at Rue Bab-Azoun 7, and took over the company of Alary & Geiser in 1874. Geiser's studio evolved to one of the most known and successful photo-studios in Algeria, with a subsidiary in Blida. Next to his studio photography, he covered all aspects of colonial photography on travels throughout the country. His business flourished especially by the success of printed photo postcards, which got more and more popular at the end of the 19th century. In France he gained high reputation as a photographer of orientalist and colonial photography and won several prizes and gold medals at photographic competitions, i.e. gold medal at Amsterdam 1892 and at the Exposition Internationale in Nice in 1901.

Web-Links

• Koos, Leonard R.
  Going Postal: On Colonial Algeria
  http://www.cwru.edu/affil/sce/Texts_2005/
  Koos%20MLA%202005.pdf

• Photographes d'Afrique (1840-1944)
  http://photographesenoutremerafrique.blogspot.de/
  search/label/Geiser

• foto CH
  http://www.foto-ch.ch/?a=fotograph&id=1204&lang=de
  

• Wikipedia
  http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Geiser

• Wikimedia
  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:
  Jean_Geiser
  
  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
  Category:Orientalist_nude_photographs_
  by_Jean_Geiser
  

Bibliography / References:

• Belkaid, Leyla
  Belles Algériennes de Geiser
  Marval, Paris 2001

• Humbert, Jean-Charles
  Jean Geiser:
  Photographe - Editeur d'art, Alger, 1843-1923
  Ibis Press, 2009