Faure, Patricia, 1928-2008

Patricia Faure (née Enk) was born on April 8, 1928 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to a Catholic industrialist family. At age 15, she moved with her widowed mother and one of her sisters to Los Angeles, California to pursue a career in modeling. While Faure was a student at Hollywood High School, she attended a presentation by Vincent Price who was promoting his museum in Beverly Hills, the Modern Institute of Art. Price offered her a volunteer position at the museum in exchange for membership. This early experience of working in a museum sparked Faure's interest in art.

In the late 1940s, Faure moved to New York to expand her modeling career with the Ford Modeling Agency and to attend the New School of Social Research. It was there that she became friends with a circle of writers, artists and musicians that included Larry Rivers, Ad Reinhardt and Willem de Kooning. After her divorce from her first husband, drummer Phil Peyton, Faure moved back to Los Angeles in 1955 and became very involved with the growing art scene. She made friends with artists from the Ferus Gallery including Ed Moses, Billy Al Bengston, Ed Kienholz and John Altoon. Faure took up photography and began taking pictures of these artists, and upon marrying her second husband Jacques Faure in 1959, moved to Paris and worked full time as a fashion photographer. After 11 years, the couple returned to Los Angeles along with their daughter, Zazu.

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