Agnès Varda was born on May 30th, 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. Her father was Greek and her mother was of French origin. A photographer, film director and one of the world’s leading filmmakers, Agnès Varda has been called the “Grandmother of the New Wave” for her key role in modern film history.\

Agnès Varda studied at the École du Louvre with a focus on art history and photography at the École des Beaux-Arts. She then went on to work at the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris as a photographer, which was directed by the famous French actor and filmmaker Jean Villar. Her first feature-length film, La Pointe Courte (1954), which she managed to put together with little money, was an early anticipation of the French New Wave movement and was well received by the French cinema community.

Over the years she has received many prizes for her work. Agnès Varda was the recipient of the prestigious 2002 French Academy prize, Prix René Clair, for her overall cinematographic work. On April 12th 2009 she was given the highest French decoration: the National Order of the Legion of Honour. On September 22nd, 2010 she received an honorary degree from Liège University in Belgium.

Usually connected to the French New Wave, Agnès Varda’s work remains particular to her own unique perspective on the world while the themes and issues in her films focus on eroticism and age, death and time, the collective unconscious, and the presentation of social taboos. Agnès Varda is one of the rare directors from the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), and yet she never rejects any attempts at labeling her. Recently, she was inspired by her own experience of being a photographer and filmmaker and keeps searching for the new frontier of films.

Installation Artist Agnès Varda

Over ten pieces of installations she created on the basis of stage design in recent years will showcase how she invents her own world through film and video, where joy and sorrow exist side by side.

The Chinese Door

"The Chinese Door” is an installation created especially for the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, which provides an opportunity for the audience in China to view the photographs she has taken during her trip to China in 1957 which have never before been seen in public. She was invited as a full member of a delegation invited by the Chinese government.

Photographer Agnès Varda

Her most recent  Self-Portrait belongs to the Broken Portraitseries as well as her photography of celebrities which will be introduced to the public.

Director and Filmmaker Agnès Varda

From her earlier films like La Pointe-Courte (1956) and Bonheur, Le (1965) to Plages d'Agnès, Les (2008), a special unit of films will lead audience into a unique world where her free style and ideas have shocked many traditional rules in the history of film.

Entitled “The Beaches of Varda”, the exhibition will open at the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts 4:00pm on March 10th, 2012 and last until April 18th.