François Hébel is a French artistic director and curator who has been on the side of photographers for over 40 years. He is Director at Large at The International Center of Photography (ICP). He was the director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson from 2017 to 2023.

He was the initiator and art director of the first Month of Photography of Grand Paris in April 2017, art director and co- founder of the Biennale Foto/Industria in Bologna, Italy, in 2013, 2015 and 2017, and art director of the “French protocol” program at FIAF gallery, New York 2015-2018. He served as a consultant for the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation Paris, 2015- 2017. He is the former director of the Rencontres d’Arles photo festival (1986, 1987 and 2001-2014) and was the co-founder of Photo Spring in Beijing, 2010-2013. He advised on the creation of photo festivals in Kyoto and New Delhi in 2010 and 2011. He has also served as vice-president of Corbis photo agency (2000-2001), director of Magnum Photos Paris and International (1987-2000), and as director of Fnac stores and galleries (1983-1985).

He has been the producer and curator of numerous exhibitions, books, educational initiatives, slide and live shows across five continents, and he collaborated early on in the careers of now major artists such as Martin Parr, Nan Goldin, JR, Robert Doisneau, Wang Qingsong, Paul Graham, Raymond Depardon, Annie Leibovitz and Sebastiao Salgado. His most recent single projects include: Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency (first shown in Arles in 1986 and most recently at the Triennale Mufoco in Milan in 2017); Raymond Depardon’s New York: A Picture a Day (FIAF/Libération 2017); and Josef Koudelka: Industries, (Editions Xavier Barral 2017). He was curator of Lucien Clergue (Grand Palais Paris), of Eaux trouble, eaux calmes (Fondation François Schneider Wattwiller, 2016); of 36 000 communes, 36 000 cicatrices (for the Centennial 1914-1918, Panthéon, Paris, 2016); and international curator at the Chongqing Photo Biennale in China, 2015.