Jean Mohr

Who is Jean Mohr?

Jean Mohr is a Swiss documentary photographer who is active since 1949, primarily with some of the major humanitarian organizations of the world, including the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the World Health Organization, and the International Labour Organization.

The son of German immigrants who came to Switzerland in 1919, his father applied for Swiss citizenship as a reaction against Hitler, and the family became Swiss citizens in 1939. Mohr did not become a professional artist until he was thirty, first studying economics, receiving his Master's Degree in Economics and Social Science from Geneva University, and later studying painting at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1956 he married Simone Turrettini, a documentary filmmaker. They have two grown sons and four grandchildren.

He has produced 26 books of photography, five with his literary collaborator John Berger and one with Edward Said. His most noteworthy recent book is a 50-year retrospective of his work photographing Palestinian refugees, Side by Side or Face to Face, published in collaboration with the ICRC and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, in Geneva, where he lives.