The artist of Romanian origin, born on September 3, 1930, died Monday at the Rothschild hospital in Paris after having suffered several strokes, added Eva Ionesco.
"My mother made me suffer a lot all my life," she confided, while acknowledging her "undeniable talent" as a photographer.
"We can't take that talent away from him," said his daughter.
Icon of the fashion world, Irina Ionesco had gained notoriety in the 1970s, in particular thanks to her erotic shots of her daughter Eva, photographed between four and eleven years old.
In a film entitled "My Little Princess", presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011, Eva returned to this troubled period.
The actress Isabelle Huppert played the role of her mother.
At the end of a lawsuit brought at the time of the film's release, Eva Ionesco had obtained a ban on any new marketing of her photos, then qualified by the magistrates as those "of a very young child or a any young girl, sexualized in an unhealthy and degrading way for her".
Eva Ionesco had not seen her mother for 15 years but ended up "overcoming her fear" thanks to her son who encouraged him to go talk to her before his death.
"You can't forgive someone who has hurt you so badly. Forgiveness is hard. But you can talk to people. I was able to talk to her before she died," she said.
Irina Ionesco gave him and his grandson their negatives.
Born in Paris to a violinist father and a trapeze artist mother, the photographer was abandoned at the age of four.
Sent to Romania, she grew up in the circus world with her grandmother and her uncles.
Photography came relatively late.
His first exhibition in 1970 was a success.
We see women in theatrical and seductive poses, adorned with lace, pearls, artificial flowers and surrounded by fetishistic objects.
Its gothic and sensual style makes it an icon for many designers.
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© 2022 AFP