NEW YORK, NY.- It is with profound sadness that Peter Blum Gallery announces the passing of Chris Marker. He died in Paris on Sunday, July 29th 2012 on his 91st birthday.

Born Christian-Francois Bouche-Villeneuve in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Marker was one of the most influential, important and visionary filmmakers to emerge in the post-war era. Marker appeared on the Paris cultural landscape as a writer and editor in the 1950s winning admiration for the Petite Planète travel books he edited for Éditions du Seuil beginning in 1954. He later became identified for his uniquely expressive non-fiction films eschewing traditional narrative technique and working from a deeply political vein.

He began garnering international recognition in 1962 with the science-fiction short film La Jetée. In the seventies Marker created documentaries both on the history of the left (Le Fond de l’air est rouge, 1977) and time-travel and memory (Sans Soleil, 1982).

In addition to his films, Chris Marker also produced acclaimed media installations, including Owls at Noon Prelude: The Hollow Men, shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2005 and presented by Peter Blum at Art Basel Unlimited in 2006, and Silent Movie, commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts in 1995 and which subsequently traveled internationally.

Peter Blum Gallery has represented Chris Marker beginning in 2007 with the exhibition Chris Marker: Staring Back on view at the gallery from September 8 – November 1, 2007. Organized by Bill Horrigan at the Wexner Center for the Arts, the exhibition included nearly 200 photographs taken by Marker over six decades. Chris Marker: Staring Back was the first exhibition of Marker’s photographs and consisted of images personally selected by the artist from his own archives.

Two subsequent exhibitions of Chris Marker’s work took place at Peter Blum Gallery in 2009 and 2011. “Quelle heure est-elle?” which opened on May 16, 2009 at Peter Blum Chelsea, was comprised of three different photographic series (Koreans, Crush-Art, Quelle heure est-elle?) as well as a grouping of photogravures, film posters, postcards and two video installations from 1957 to the present. PASSENGERS, a collection of over 200 photographs taken between 2008-2010 on the Paris Metro was exhibited at Peter Blum Galleries, Chelsea and Soho from April 2 – June 4, 2011.

Most recently in 2011 Peter Blum Gallery was instrumental in organizing the first one-person exhibition of Chris Marker in France at the Les Rencontres d’Arles de la Photographie. Until then, Marker steadfastly refused an official exhibition of his work in his home country.