Mod City: John and Georgette
John Rogers Jr. was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was the son of John Rogers Sr., a prominent public figure in Oklahoma. Rogers developed his love of photography during his high school years, when he picked up a camera and began photographing his family. After graduating from Tulsa University around 1942, Rogers joined the US Army to fight in World War II. Rogers worked as a photographer for the Army, and was designated “Entertainment Manager.” Much of his photography during the war depicts troops and battles, published into a story about the 393rd Infantry Regiment 99th Infantry Division, which played a key role in the Battle of the Bulge.
After his time in World War II, Rogers attended the Art Center in California. Rogers’ digitized Art Center photography can be viewed on The Portal to Texas History. He moved to Dallas in 1949, where he married his first wife, Barbara “Bobby” Lockwood in 1951. Bobby died in a tragic traffic accident early in their marriage. In the late 1950s, Rogers met Georgette de Bruchard, and the two married in 1966.
Georgette de Bruchard was born in France in 1928. She moved to the US to pursue a career in photography at an early age. De Bruchard initially worked as a staff photographer for Southern Methodist University with the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking. She would go on to produce a great deal of work for publications like Dallas and Time magazines.
The couple worked with many of the same clients in Dallas, with a focus on architecture and product photography. Their photography styles were quite different, with Rogers creating very commercial images, showing subjects exactly how they were, while de Bruchard added a more artistic quality to her photographs, and also featured more human subjects like celebrities and politicians.
