AS A chronicler of the glamour of the 1950s French Riviera, Irish photographer Edward Quinn took the most extraordinary photographs. The images themselves are compelling: the gloriously proportioned Sophia Loren leaning out a window, coyly glancing back over her shoulder into Quinn's lens; a young and lean Marlon Brando contemplating the wares at a street fruit stall. But what is just as striking is how the nature of celebrity photography has changed. Such charming, relaxed portraits do not exist anymore;

instead there are two extremes. We either have paparazzi shots taken as the beautiful and famous do the shop run without makeup, or the photo shoots involving an army of stylists, hairdressers and much airbrushing. The PR machine didn't exist in the 1950s and Quinn had what would now be considered remarkable access to the stars; they invariably liked the tall, smiling, ever-polite Irishman, who never published an unflattering picture of anyone.

Since his death 10 years ago, there has been a revival of interest in his work, with the publication of a new book, Riviera Cocktail, and an exhibition of some of his prints at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London later this month. Gret Quinn, his Swiss widow, paints a picture of the man that is as fascinating as any of his photographs. Born in Dublin in 1920, he was a musician and joined the RAF, becoming a radio navigator in the second world war. When the war finished, he continued to work in private aviation. It was on a plane from Tangiers to Marseilles in 1948 that he first encountered Gret, a meeting that changed both their futures.

Her first impressions of him were that he was "a very optimistic and a charming person. Everything was alright for him . . . there were never any difficulties . . . and he was always smiling." He came to visit her in Monte Carlo, where she worked, and realised that the potential to make a living as a press photographer on the Riviera was great. He knew nothing about photography but quickly taught himself as much as he could with books. "Whenever he decided to do anything . . . it could be absolutely anything . . . he always would get results, " Gret recalls. "He probably had no talent for certain things but just knew that if he wanted to do something and had the necessary books or so, he did manage." They married in 1952, and she assisted in the dark room and with the photographs' text, and together, they focused on his career.

Quite simply, anybody who was anybody visited the Riviera in the 1950s. Wolfgang Frei, who is Gret's nephew and assists her in looking after the archive, describes it as being a special time, when a post-war euphoric feeling existed. "In the 100km between Monte Carlo and Cannes, everything happened, " he says. "It wasn't just the stars, it was rich people, ex-kings, writers like Somerset Maugham and Francoise Sagan or Grand Prix drivers like Stirling Moss. You had everybody." Quinn photographed a little-known actress called Audrey Hepburn, who loved the pictures so much she sent the contact sheets to her agent who then passed them on to Paramount studios. She was asked to fly to the US for a screen test and consequently got the role in Roman Holiday.

Quinn also took pictures of the 17-year-old Brigitte Bardot, who had come to the rivera to make one of her first films. He later wrote of her: "I noticed straight away that she was an excellent model; her movements were very lithe, she walked and posed gracefully.

She quite naturally got into poses which showed her body off advantageously and it was obvious why she became known as 'sex kitten'."

Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra were some of his favourite subjects. "He got on well with these people. He also liked Brando actually, " Gret recalls. "He never said anything negative about anyone, you see.

He really thought that it was not his job.

The moment they were helpful and he could take their photograph, he was always pleased."

In 1951, he photographed the person who was to become his favourite subject ever, as well as his friend . . . Pablo Picasso. He photographed the artist at work many, many times, until Picasso's death in 1973, and wrote several books about him. Quinn knew Picasso lived in the Riviera region and went to a ceramics exhibition where he knew he would be in attendance. While other press photographers took their shots and rushed off to their press agents, Quinn hung back and took a picture of Picasso, with his children Paloma and Claude. He asked if he could photograph Picasso in his own home and got a non-committal, "We'll see."

The quietly persistent Quinn visited Picasso several times at home, never getting his photographs, but he was not deterred. He was eventually allowed to photograph the artist in his pottery studio in Vallauris. "Lui, il ne me derange pas [He doesn't disturb me], " Picasso said to a friend at the end of the day, and Quinn knew then that he had been accepted. "It was not easy for Picasso because so many people wanted something from him. But he liked Ted because he really didn't want anything, just to take a few photographs, " Gret says.

While Quinn would live the rest of his life abroad, spending 40 or so years in Nice and his final ones in Altendorf, Switzerland, he never lost his love for his native land. He loved to return and his book, James Joyce's Dublin was the one he preferred above all his published work, Gret thinks (see over page). "It's a silly thing to say, but I felt he was more Irish than the Irish, although he was Irish, " she says. "He was extremely proud to be Irish.

One day he said we might go to live there when we were older but unfortunately, that never happened."

The couple went to Dublin twice, visiting the house where Quinn was born (Gret can't remember for sure, but she believes it was Philipsburgh Avenue in Marino), although he had no relatives living in the city anymore. He brought her to the places where he used to go swimming as a young boy or where he went for walks. "He told me for hours about his youth in Dublin. He loved it, " she says.

Wolfgang Frei, who produced the Dublin book with him and was a student at the time, says Quinn made no compromises. "He was very strict, he know exactly what he wanted.

I remember the words 'snot green' in a picture, and it had to be like that. He didn't care if we were late for the printers."

The '60s marked a change of direction in Quinn's work. Around this time, aggressive paparazzi had emerged, PR people were making easy access to the stars difficult and he decided to focus on artists instead, including Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney.

The current level of interest in his work would have delighted and surprised him, his widow says. "I just hope that Ted will know about it. He worked so hard, you know, and now it's absolutely fantastic after so many years that there's still a lot of interest. He would never believe that."

Nuala O'Faolain on Edward Quinn's Dublin collection