BIO

Renée Jacobs is one of the most celebrated photographers of the female nude of our time. Recipient of the prestigious International Photography Award for Fine Art Nude, her work has been exhibited and published around the world.

Monographs of her work include Werkdruck (2012/Editions Galerie Vevais, edited and with an introduction by Jock Sturges); Renée Jacobs' PARIS (2013/Editions Galerie Vevais) and Rêves de Femmes (2014/Editions Bessard). Her book POLAROIDS first and second edition were released in 2022 and 2023 with Editions Galerie Vevais as well as the second edition of PARIS in 2022. Renée Jacobs: In Italy was published with Dumas·Salchli Editions in 2025. Dreams from America published with Galerie Les Yeux Ouverts will be released mid-2026.

Magazines that have featured Renée's work include Vanity Fair France, Elle Italia, L’Oeil de la Photographie, Playboy Italia, Silvershotz, Adore Noir, PH Magazine, Fine Art Photo, Nude Magazine, Photoicon, French Photo, B&W Magazine, Focus, Discarded Magazine, FHM Turkey and numerous others. She has been featured in numerous anthologies, such as Taschen's Mammoth Book of Erotic Photography.

Renée's early photojournalism included assignments for The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and many other newspapers and magazines.  She received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Outstanding Coverage of the Disadvantaged and her work is in the permanent collection of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.  Her first book, Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania was originally published in 1986 and re-issued in 2010 to favorable reviews in The New York Times Review of Books and photo-eye.  After a 15 year detour as a civil rights lawyer, Renée returned to photography. 

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING

“This is a book about Paris, about passion, and about pleasure.  Jacobs’ depiction of femininity is both an ancient and a modern one, of women as free spirit – as free as any man.  Like Romaine Brooks, Jacobs presents formal elegance, desire, and beauty all coupled within the allure of sexual magic.  The joy sings through Jacobs’ lens.”
-Professor John Wood, from the Introduction to RENÉE JACOBS' PARIS.

"Renée Jacobs' work is the result of a very personal vision and interpretation of women. The female form is her intimate sketchpad.  Life is a dream and Renée treats us to exquisite images that are a magical feast for the eyes of the beholder….[With her work, you] are walking past an open door and witnessing beauty ... Apparitions and fantasies, their story is left to our imagination . . . Leafing through the pages, you become a voyeur; you experience a guilty pleasure, un léger frisson, catching a glimpse of forbidden private moments." 
--Douglas & Françoise Kirkland, from the Introduction to Rêves de Femmes

“Renée’s pictures have a combination of intensity and honesty that I don’t often encounter… She’s making the pictures because she wants to keep them fixed in her head and heart for all time.  Her models trust her to tell the truth about them.  And she does . . . The truth is of course half hers, a half that is rich in admiration, and affection.  For their part, the models are licensed in the moment to be – without limit or constraint.  I feel distinctly privileged to present this work to you as a singular example of what can be achieved in the photographic medium…"
-Jock Sturges, from the introduction to WERKDRUCK