Adolphe Terris

b. 1820 — d. 1900

Adolphe Terris French, 1820-1900 Born in Aix-en-Provence to a family of artisans, Adolphe Terris is best known for his photographs of public works in and around Marseilles. In 1845 he opened a library in Marseilles, but turned to photography by 1856 when he became an associate in a photography studio with Fred Vittigliano. He was a founding member of the Société marseillaise de photographie in 1860 and organized an exhibition in his studio a year later. Terris's first commission to photograph public works, awarded in 1861, was to record the reconstruction of the rue l'Imperiale. This was followed by a long series of public commissions through 1875 to photograph shipyards, the construction of public buildings, the port of Joliette, and the rebuilding of rue Colbert. From this body of work, Terris contributed to the extraordinary series of albums Les Travaux Publics de la France, published in Paris through the French Ministry of Public Works by Baron James Rothschild between 1866-83. Each volume holds 50 collotypes by a number of France's most important photographers, including Édouard Baldus, A. Collard, Jules DuClos, and Louis-Alphonse Davanne. K.L.C.