France

Marc Riboud & Willy Ronis: France 1935 – 1985

Marc Riboud & Willy Ronis: France 1935 – 1985

In this exhibition the two internationally famous French photographers Willy Ronis and Marc Riboud guide the viewer through the everyday life in Paris from 1935 to 1985. Willy Ronis, a representative of the French school of humanism, showed in his works the “normal life on the street”. His photographs focused on people and showed mainly simple workers, women and children,…
Vintage: Everyday Life of France by Amélie Galup (late 19th Century)

Vintage: Everyday Life of France by Amélie Galup (late 19th Century)

Amélie Galup (1856-1943) taught herself photography in 1895 at the family home in Saint-Antonin-Nobleval, where she spent her vacations, turning the basement into a darkroom. She developed and printed the pictures she took of her husband, their two children and her family. Galup constructed a set in one room of the house, recreating the conditions of a portrait studio, backdrop…
Historic B&W photos of Lyon, France in 19th Century

Historic B&W photos of Lyon, France in 19th Century

Thanks to the silk trade, the Lyon became an important industrial town during the 19th century. In 1831 and 1834, the canuts (silk workers) of Lyon staged two major uprisings for better working conditions and pay. The 1831 uprising saw one of the first recorded uses of the black flag as an emblem of protest. In 1862, the world’s first…
Vintage B&W photos of Paris, France (late 19th Century)

Vintage B&W photos of Paris, France (late 19th Century)

After the fall of the Commune, the city was governed under the strict surveillance of the conservative national government. The French government and parliament did not return to the city from Versaillles until 1879, though the Senate returned earlier to its home in the Luxembourg Palace. On 23 July 1873, the National Assembly endorsed the project of building a basilica…
Vintage: Victor Hugo’s Funeral (1885)

Vintage: Victor Hugo’s Funeral (1885)

Victor Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. Victor Hugo’s death from pneumonia at the age of 83, generated intense national mourning. He was not only revered as a towering figure in literature, he was a statesman who shaped the Third Republic and democracy in France. More…
Biography: 19th Century photographer of Nudes – Bruno Braquehais

Biography: 19th Century photographer of Nudes – Bruno Braquehais

Auguste Bruno Braquehais (1823-1875) was a French photographer active primarily in Paris in the mid-19th century. His photographic work documenting the 1871 Paris Commune is considered an important early example of photojournalism. While largely forgotten after his death, his work was rediscovered during preparations for the Commune’s centennial in 1971, and his photographs have since been the exhibited at numerous…
Historic B&W photos of Paris, France, late 19th Century

Historic B&W photos of Paris, France, late 19th Century

Late in the 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the 1889 Universal Exposition, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution and featured the new Eiffel Tower; and the 1900 Universal Exposition, which gave Paris the Pont Alexandre III, the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais and the first Paris Métro line. Paris became the laboratory of…
Biography: Nude photographer Julien Vallou de Villeneuve

Biography: Nude photographer Julien Vallou de Villeneuve

Julien Vallou de Villeneuve (1795 – 1866) was a French photographer. He started his career at the Salon of 1814, exhibiting images depicting daily life, fashion, regional costumes and nude photographs. In the 1820s and 30s he developed an international following for his folio-sized lithographic erotic series Les Jeunes Femmes, depicting racy episodes in the life of young women and…
Biography: Pictorial photographer Robert Demachy

Biography: Pictorial photographer Robert Demachy

Robert Demachy (1859–1936) was a French Pictorial photographer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He is best known for his intensely manipulated prints that display a distinct painterly quality. He was influenced by the Impressionist painters and spent most of his time making photographs and developing his theories on photography, both technical and aesthetic. He wrote thousands of…
Historic B&W photos of Bordeaux, France (19th century)

Historic B&W photos of Bordeaux, France (19th century)

The 19th century is synonymous with the Industrial Revolution and the city of Bordeaux was developed and modernised during this period. The population doubled, to reach 230,000 inhabitants in 1891. At the end of the 19th century it finally and proudly became a Republican city. Artistic competitions were organised to show its political affiliation and the “Bronze Horses of the…
Interview with Fine Art Landscape photographer Michel Rajkovic

Interview with Fine Art Landscape photographer Michel Rajkovic

There are places that carry you, lights that you freeze and moods that you fill emotions. It is through a long period of research and location scouting that his work begins. Michel Rajkovic does not try to capture the landscape as we perceive it. On the contrary, patiently, with long exposure technics, he invites the time and chance to bring…
Biography: Portrait photographer Nadar

Biography: Portrait photographer Nadar

Nadar was the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (6 April 1820 – 23 March 1910), a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, and balloonist. He is remembered as a photographer, for the portraits that he made of his great contemporaries. The Museum’s print of the Taylor portrait is a woodburytype, a kind of print in which the image is formed by ink…
Biography: Eugene Atget

Biography: Eugene Atget

Eugène Atget (February 12, 1857 – August 4, 1927) was a French pioneer of documentary photography, noted for his determination to document all of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their disappearance to modernization. He became obsessed with making what he modestly called “documents” of the city and its environs, and compiling a visual compendium of the architecture,…
Michael Kenna: France

Michael Kenna: France

Kenna first visited France in 1973 and has been photographing there since the early 1980s. He has produced thousands of photographs on subjects such as Mont St Michel, Le Notre’s Gardens, the Calais Lace Factories and Chateau Lafite Rothschild. France encompasses work from these projects and many others. Comprising 275 duotone plates, this gorgeous new book was edited by the…
The only surviving images of veterans of Napoleonic Wars taken in 1858

The only surviving images of veterans of Napoleonic Wars taken in 1858

Napoléon Bonaparte’s final defeat was the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Even after his death in 1821, the surviving soldiers of Grande Armée revered his historic leadership. Each year on May 5, the anniversary of Napoléon’s death, the veterans marched to Paris’ Place Vendôme in full uniform to pay respects to their emperor. These photographs were taken on one of…