Category: beauty

The Albertina Museum website

Exhibition: ‘Lisette Model Retrospective’ at the Albertina Museum, Vienna

Exhibition dates: 30th October, 2025 – 22nd February, 2026

Curators: Walter Moser, head of the department of photography at the Albertina, with assistant curator Nina Eisterer

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983) 'Promenade des Anglais, Nice' 1934 from the exhibition 'Lisette Model Retrospective' at The Albertina Museum, Vienna, October 2025 - February 2026

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Promenade des Anglais, Nice
1934
Gelatin silver print
50.7 x 40.4cm
Estate of Gerd Sander, Julian Sander Gallery, Cologne
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy of baudoin lebon and Avi Keitelman

From the gut

All the haughtiness of the upper-upper, lower-upper, socialites and high society in Promenade des Anglais, Nice (1934, below) versus all the “colour” and characters of Sammy’s Bar in New York, salt of the earth, dead beat party animals (1940-1944, below).

All the obsequious opulence of the women in Fashion Show, Hotel Pierre, New York (1940-1946, below) versus all the low angle, unbuttoned bulk of a New York bag lady in Lower East Side, New York (1940-1947, below)

Model sure doesn’t pull any punches and, perchance, you know which side of the fence she sits.

Combining social realism and emotional expression Model’s street-life scenes and portraits are shot with a razor sharp mind and eye, honed with emotional insight and social conviction, promoting “a fierce attack on the bourgeoisie of the time.” These images are shot from the gut, felt in the gut! Oooof! Kapow!

This philosophical, libertarian vision is grounded in the everydayness of working people, not in men “who sit at desks as large as thrones, who gather in solemn hemicycles, in splendid and severe seats…”

Her Promenade des Anglais photographs are incisive, cutting to the marrow, evidencing a piercing, core-level truth about the nature of power, money, humility, humanity. Knowing exactly the story she wanted to tell, Model cropped her negatives in the darkroom to get the desired, constructed photographs of the elite, this promenade of the privileged. That she passed on her wisdom to Diane Arbus is only to our benefit.

Model’s photographs in this series are more biting, satirical and oblique than those of Arbus. Direct in one way (in the placement of the camera in front of the subject) but oblique in another … in the asymmetrical placement of the figures within the picture plane, in the sly acknowledgement (or not) and resentment of the camera by the subject. Conversely, her photographs of people in nightclubs, jazz performers and the socially disadvantaged are humanist photographs of the highest order, unorthodox musical compositions that sing with light, movement, and life much more so than the square, formal attributes of the Arbus.

God bless Lisette Model for her glorious irreverence and musical lyricism.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to The Albertina Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“As long as man exploits man, as long as humanity is divided into masters and servants, there will be neither normality nor peace. The reason for all the evil of our time is here. Do you see these? Severe, double-breasted, elegant men who get on and off airplanes, who run in powerful cars, who sit at desks as large as thrones, who gather in solemn hemicycles, in splendid and severe seats: these men with the faces of dogs or of saints, of hyenas or eagles, these are the masters.”

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Model’s libertarian philosophy is not easy to classify… it is often stuck in the approximation of street photography… but photography, when it is great, is one! and one only!… Genres only serve to sink it into the language of commerce! The lopsided shots, the deep blacks, the stellar whites… beaded with emotional uniqueness… see the human being as an end and never as a means… they invite us to think that justice is inseparable from beauty, it is a way of doing things well, like a chair-setter, a coalman, or a bricklayer… to flee from the arrogance, imitation, and contempt that accompany social codifications… what is beautiful is naturally right… because photography is not just a linguistic quest, but precisely as a linguistic quest, it is a philosophical vision… that respects no barriers or emulates the gods… it is an original, archetypal desire, that takes precedence over everything and carries it as the absolute value of beauty and justice!

Pino Bertelli. “Lisette Model. Sulla fotografia del disinganno,” on the Phocus Magazine website Nd [Online] Cited 02/02/2026. Translated from the Italian by Google Translate. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Promenade des Anglais, Nice
1934
Gelatin silver print
43.2 x 35.4cm
The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy Lebon, Paris /
Keitelman, Brussels

“Visiting her mother in Nice in 1934 Model took her camera out on the Promenade des Anglais and made a series of portraits which to this day are among her most widely reproduced and widely exhibited images. With them Model declared her trademark style: Close-up, biting, satirical – almost like photographic political cartoons. In a nice bit of art history sleuthing, Thomas discovered that this series was published in the communist periodical Regards, a publication led by Ehrenburg, Gide, Gorky and Malreaux in 1935. Model, she says, never denied having published her work in Europe, but neither did she ever precisely acknowledge having done so… Thomas also relates Model’s style to the style of images published in Regards and what was being shown in small galleries – that approach, almost mocking, surely exposing, with the photographer or artist clearly separate/different if not superior from the subject – was in the air. Model perfected it, but she didn’t invent it.”

Elsa Dorfman. “Ann Thomas on Lisette Model,” on the AMERICANSUBURB X: THEORY website, June 14, 2010 [Online] Cited 03/02/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983) 'Promenade des Anglais, Nice' 1937 from the exhibition 'Lisette Model Retrospective' at The Albertina Museum, Vienna, October 2025 - February 2026

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Promenade des Anglais, Nice
1937
Gelatin silver print
50.7 x 40.4cm
Estate of Gerd Sander, Julian Sander Gallery, Cologne
© Estate of Lisette Model

Lisette Model (1901-1983), born into a Viennese Jewish family, is regarded as one of the 20th century’s most influential photographers. This ALBERTINA exhibition presents a broad retrospective covering her most important groups of works created between 1933 and 1959. Alongside iconic photographs such as Coney Island Bather and Café Metropole, the selection will also include seldom-seen works.

Model, following her emigration to New York in 1938, quickly rose to prominence with her pictures for magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar showing facets of urban life: the poverty of the Lower East Side, the upper class at their leisure pursuits, and night life at bars and jazz clubs. Model went on to become an influential teacher during the McCarthy Era. The exhibition features the first-ever public presentation of the original draft of her 1979 monograph, a classic of photo book history.

Text from The Albertina Museum website

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
First Reflection, New York
1939-1940, printed 1976-1981
Gelatin silver print
Estate of Gerd Sander, Julian Sander Gallery, Cologne

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Window, Bonwit Teller, New York
1939-1940, printed 1976-1981
Gelatin silver print
Estate of Gerd Sander, Julian Sander Gallery, Cologne

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Reflections, New York
1939-1945
Gelatin silver print
26.5 x 33.4cm
The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy Lebon, Paris / Keitelman, Brussels

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Singer, Sammy’s Bar, New York
c. 1940
Gelatin silver print
© Estate of Lisette Model

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Couple Dancing
1940
Gelatin silver print
© Estate of Lisette Model

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Sammy’s Bar, New York
1940-1944
Gelatin silver print
37.8 x 49cm
The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna – Permanent Loan Austrian Ludwig Foundation for Arts and Science
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy Lebon, Paris / Keitelman, Brussels

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Sammy’s
1940-1944
Gelatin silver print
© Estate of Lisette Model

Born into a Viennese family with Jewish roots, Lisette Model (1901-1983) is considered one of the most internationally influential female photographers. The exhibition at the ALBERTINA Museum is the most comprehensive presentation of the artist in Austria to date and brings together her most important groups of works from 1933 to 1959. In addition to iconic photographs such as Coney Island Bather and Singer at the Metropole Café, the exhibition also includes lesser-known works that have never been shown before.

While Lisette Model initially pursued a musical education, it was only in France, where she lived from the mid-1920s, that she found her way to photography: in 1934, the self-taught photographer took her revealing series of portraits of rich idlers in Nice, which caused a sensation as a biting social critique in the heated political climate of the time. After Model emigrated to New York in 1938, she quickly made a name for herself in the vibrant art scene as a freelance photographer for style-setting magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar. She photographed the diverse and contradictory facets of urban life: Model showed the poor population of the Lower East Side district in unsparing shots, the upper class at their pleasures in confrontational portraits and the vibrant nightlife in bars and jazz clubs in dynamic series. In the late 1940s and 1950s, she created extensive groups of works outside New York.

The photos of the west coast of the USA or Venezuela are characterised by a melancholy and gloomy mood without Model losing sight of social conditions. Due to political reprisals during the McCarthy era, Model began her second, enormously influential career as a teacher. After decades of effort, the publishing house Aperture published her first monograph in 1979. The exhibition Lisette Model presents the original design of this publication, which is now a classic among photo books, for the first time.

Lisette Model

Lisette Model (1901-1983) brought about a sudden change in photography with her spectacularly direct pictures. Her immediate, humorous, frequently confrontational, yet sometimes also empathetic style of representation revolutionised traditional documentary photography. Her pictures of street-life scenes and portraits combine social realism and emotional expression: “Shoot from the gut!” was her famous credo. This retrospective brings together Model’s most important groups of works from her nearly thirty-year career, from 1933 to 1959, including works that have never been on view before.

Lisette Model was born as Elise Amelie Felicie Stern (Seybert) into an upper class Viennese family with Jewish roots in 1901. She initially pursued a musical education and from 1919 to 1921 attended courses taught by composer Arnold Schönberg at the progressive Schwarzwald School, which had been founded by Eugenie Schwarzwald. Her contact with Schönberg proved formative for Model’s artistic work. After her father’s death, Lisette Model, together with her mother and sister, moved to France in 1926, where she discovered photography. In 1934 she shot her first extensive portrait series of wealthy idlers in Nice, which caused a furor for betraying social criticism in the heated political climate of the time.

Having emigrated to New York in 1938, Model quickly made a name for herself in the art scene as a freelance photographer for such influential magazines as Harper’s Bazaar. She photographed the contrasts of urban life: in unsparing images, Model presented the impoverished population of the Lower East Side; in scathing portraits, she depicted the upper classes indulging in their pleasures; and in a number of dynamic series, she captured the pulsating nightlife of the metropolis. In the late 1940s and 1950s she created her first series of works outside New York. Due to political reprisals during the McCarthy era, Model’s artistic work stagnated. She embarked on an influential career as a teacher, shaping an entire generation of photographers, including Larry Fink, Diane Arbus, and others.

France

In 1926, Lisette Model moved to France, where she continued her vocal training, which she was forced to discontinue abruptly due to voice problems. In 1933 she turned to photography instead. The threatening political situation in Europe made it necessary for her to learn a profession, and photography offered itself as a modern field of activity especially for women. Model’s sister Olga, a trained photographer, and the artist Rogi André provided important inspiration, including the momentous advice to photograph only what aroused her passionate interest.

The economic crisis and the rise of fascism went hand in hand with a debate among committed left-wing artists about documentary photography. The central question was to what extent photography could expose social injustices and serve as a weapon in social conflicts. It is unclear how closely Model followed these debates; in later years, she remained persistently silent on the subject. Her early photographs from Paris clearly reveal a socially critical approach. Going about her work with distinct directness, she photographed sleeping homeless people and blind beggars, whom she characterised as victims of social circumstances through their bent bodies.

In July 1934, Lisette Model used a Rolleiflex to photograph a series of portraits of wealthy idlers on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. It was synonymous with glamour and elite tourism and a popular motif at the time. Yet Model portrayed her subjects as caricatures through their facial expressions, postures, and gestures. The narrow cropping of the motifs suggests that the photographer was in close proximity to her subjects, who look condescendingly into the camera. In fact, however, Model achieved this effect in the darkroom, where she selected radically novel perspectives from the negatives.

Regards

Although Lisette Model was only at the beginning of her career, the respected communist magazine Regards published her photographs from the series Promenade des Anglais in 1935. The layout of the article juxtaposed Model’s portraits with an image of a female worker with a fishing net. The accompanying text also embeds the photographs in the ideological rhetoric of class struggle: “The Promenade des Anglais is a zoological garden where the most abominable specimens of the human species lounge in white armchairs. Their faces betray boredom, condescension, impertinent stupidity, and at times malice. These rich people, who spend most of their time dressing, adorning themselves, manicuring their nails, and applying makeup, fail to conceal the decadence and immeasurable emptiness of bourgeois thinking.”

Against the backdrop of the repressive climate of the McCarthy era in the 1950s, Lisette Model would later tone down the political content of her images from Nice. Instead, she emphasised the humour and her intuitive approach to portraiture in public spaces.

New York

In October 1938, Lisette Model emigrated to New York with her husband Evsa Model, a Jewish-Russian painter. Her first series shot there reveal her great fascination with the metropolis. The work Reflection, which makes use of reflections in shop windows, merges motifs and spaces to create an enigmatic collage. For the Running Legs photographs, Model did not point her camera upwards at the skyscrapers as usual, but looked at the feet of passersby at street level. Model experienced New York’s hectic and consumer-oriented culture as ambivalent: the dark shadows in the windows of the department stores seem threatening, and the dense crowds of legs have a claustrophobic effect. In portraits of people on Fifth Avenue and Wall Street photographed from below, Model highlights the arrogance of the pedestrians rushing by.

Shortly after her arrival in New York, Lisette Model attracted the attention of several key figures in the art and media world. Her contacts with Ralph Steiner, editor of the magazine PM’s Weekly, and Alexey Brodovitch, the legendary art director of Harper’s Bazaar, proved momentous. In 1941, Steiner published Model’s biting photographs of the Promenade des Anglais in Nice under the provocative title “Why France Fell” as an explanation for the country’s defeat in World War II. Model’s first commission for Harper’s Bazaar took her to the popular leisure destination of Coney Island, where she shot her iconic photographs of a bather with an empathetic eye. As early as 1940, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired one of Model’s pictures and continued to show her works in exhibitions in the following years.

Lower East Side

In one of her most extensive groups of works, Lisette Model focuses on the residents of the Lower East Side. Model’s attention to physical peculiarities and extremes becomes particularly apparent in it. Retrospectively defined cropping detaches the people from their spatial surroundings and emphasises the sitters’ statuesque monumentality.

Lisette Model shared her interest in the socially disadvantaged with photographers from the New York Photo League, an influential left-wing political association dedicated to socially committed photography. Becoming a member, Model actively participated in Photo League events and exhibited on its premises. And yet she distanced herself from her photography being categorised as political or social documentary. She also rejected accusations of portraying her models overly sarcastically, arguing instead for a humanist point-of-view that focuses on the strength and personality of her subjects. Emotional expression and social realism are inextricably linked in these photographs: the expressive bodies clearly display the burden of tough living conditions.

Entertainment

Similar to her photographs from France, Model also explored disparities in urban life in New York. The harsh images of the Lower East Side are juxtaposed with photographs of people indulging in leisure activities and amusing themselves at all kinds of shows. Model captured these scenes with a keen eye for human contradictions and bizarre moments: dressed-up ladies at a fashion show are just as much a part of this as participants in a dog show bearing a striking resemblance to their four-legged friends. Photographs taken in museums do not focus on the artworks intently viewed by visitors, but rather on the act of vision itself. With a few exceptions, the series Dog Show and Museum have only survived as negatives. They can now be presented here in digital form for the first time.

Nightlife

Lisette Model’s intuitive approach to photography reached its peak in her pictures of nightclubs. Using bright flashes, she snatched the celebrating guests and energetic performers from the darkness and in the subsequent post-editing of the images tilted the motifs to render the compositions more dynamic. The depiction of expressive gestures and people in moments of emotional tension recalls the body images of the early Viennese Expressionists, whom Model got to know through her contact with Arnold Schönberg. Model, who always vehemently denied the influence of other artists, acknowledged solely Schönberg’s impact on her work. His theory of the “emancipation of dissonance,” which expands on classical harmony, is echoed both in Model’s unorthodox compositions and in her caricatures.

The traumatic experience of exile left deep traces in Lisette Model’s work. Like the Lower East Side before, nightclubs were places populated by immigrants. They evoked a sense of social belonging and cultural familiarity in the artist.

West Coast

In 1946, Lisette Model accompanied her husband Evsa to San Francisco on an invitation from the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA). She quickly established connections with the lively photography scene on the US West Coast, where famous photographers such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston were active. Model returned several times and in 1949 taught a course on documentary photography at the CSFA’s photography department; she continued with her teaching in New York from 1951 onward.

Model did her first major groups of works outside New York. The photographs of visitors to the opera of San Francisco rank among her most striking portraits and illustrate her strategy of bringing out individual characters by exaggerating physical peculiarities.

In 1949 an assignment for the Ladies Home Journal took Lisette Model to Reno, Nevada. She photographed women staying at so-called “divorce ranches,” waiting for their divorces to be finalised. Thanks to more liberal laws, divorce was possible in Nevada after a waiting period of just a few weeks – compared to the patriarchal rules of other states, this was an uncomplicated way for women in particular to separate from their spouses. Lisette Model’s sympathy for her sitters becomes palpable. Unlike the pictures taken in San Francisco, these portraits are less expressive, but more melancholic instead.

Venezuela

In the 1950s, in the wake of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) inquired into Lisette Model’s activities. Neighbours and even her grocer were questioned about the artist. In February 1954 two FBI agents finally interrogated Lisette Model and accused her of alleged membership in the communist party and of her actual affiliation with the Photo League, which had already disbanded in 1951 due to political pressure. The agents were unable to prove any wrongdoing on Model’s part, but classified her as uncooperative and recommended that she be placed on the security watch list. As a result of these accusations, Model lost some of her most important clients and was forced to supplement her income by working as a teacher.

Plagued by financial difficulties, she travelled to Caracas in 1954, accepting an invitation extended by the Venezuelan government. By then, Venezuela had been under the presidency of Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez for two years – a military officer and dictator who modernised Caracas and exploited the country’s rich oil reserves. In photographs that were unusual for her in terms of motif and style, Model captured the technical infrastructure for oil production around Lake Maracaibo. Because of their gloomy atmosphere, the images were unsuitable for use in advertising and propaganda. Unsettled by the paranoia of the McCarthy era, the photographer often found it difficult to relate to her surroundings.

Jazz

As a result of the reprisals during the McCarthy era, Lisette Model photographed significantly less in the 1950s than in the promising decades before. One exception were the photographs she took during a horserace in New York in 1956, where she directed her attention at the audience instead of the competition. Her preoccupation with the subject of jazz was most intense. It is Model’s largest body of work, which developed from her photographs of New York nightclubs in the 1940s. Model was one of the few women to photograph jazz events such as the Newport Jazz Festival or concerts of the Lenox School of Jazz at the Berkshire Music Barn in Massachusetts. Highly musical herself, Model knew how to use her straightforward approach to convey the passion and intensity of the musicians’ playing as an immediate experience. No musician was photographed by her as often as Billie Holiday. One of Lisette Model’s last pictures, taken in 1959, shows the singer lying in her coffin.

In the 1950s, Model planned to publish her jazz photographs. It would have been the first monographic jazz book in history, but the project failed when her former client at Harper’s Bazaar discredited Model as a “troublemaker” and, due to her “political unreliability,” dissuaded potential financial backers.

Starting in the 1970s, Lisette Model was rediscovered in exhibitions and interviews. After years of effort, the first monograph on her work, with an introduction by Berenice Abbott, came out in 1979 with the renowned publisher Aperture. It is now considered an incunabulum within the photo book genre. The Albertina owns the hitherto unpublished dummy with original prints. Originally, the book was to be printed with a comprehensive biography of the artist penned by author Phillip Lopate. Dissatisfied with the text, Model had the manuscript withdrawn and commented on it with scathing remarks: “I thought an introduction was to be written – not that I was to be put on trial,” she noted down on the title page.

Model’s behaviour was indicative of the protective shield she had built around her private life as a result of her threatening encounter with the paranoia of the McCarthy era. In her public statements and interviews she obscured facts and details of her biography. She resisted simplistic interpretations of her work, but also concealed and marginalised references to politically explosive works, such as the publication of her photographs from Nice in the communist publication Regards in the mid-1930s.

Press release from The Albertina Museum

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Coney Island Bather, New York
1939-1941
Gelatin silver print
49.5 × 39.3cm
Estate of Gerd Sander, Julian Sander Gallery, Cologne
©️ Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy of baudoin lebon and Avi Keitelman

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Fashion Show, Hotel Pierre, New York
1940-1946
Gelatin silver print
39.3 x 49.2 cm
The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna, Permanent Loan Austrian Ludwig Foundation for Arts and Science
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy Lebon, Paris / Keitelman, Brussels

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Lower East Side, New York
1940-1947
34.6 × 27.1cm
The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy Lebon, Paris / Keitelman, Brussels

Lisette Model (1901-1983) 'Albert-Alberta, Hubert's 42nd St Flea Circus, New York' 1945

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Albert-Alberta, Hubert’s Forty-second Street Flea Circus, New York
1945, printed 1980s
Gelatin silver print
Estate of Gerd Sander, Julian Sander Gallery, Cologne

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Female impersonator
c. 1945
Gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Opera, San Francisco
1949
Gelatin silver print
34 × 26.6cm
The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy Lebon, Paris / Keitelman, Brussels

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Opera, San Francisco
1949
Gelatin silver print
© The Lisette Model Foundation

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)

Lisette Model (Vienna, 1901 – New York, 1983) was one of the main practitioners of North American direct photography. Born into a Jewish bourgeois family in Vienna, she studied piano and singing with Arnold Schönberg. In 1926 she moved to Paris where she became interested in painting and photography. Due to the oncoming war in Europe and growing anti-Semitism spreading throughout the continent, Model moved to New York in 1938 and began to work as a photographer for the magazine Harper’s Bazaar under the guidance of Alexey Brodovitch. She became a member of the Photo League.

Free of any sort of indoctrination, Model’s work stands out for her use of direct portraiture and for focusing on the peculiarities of the people she portrayed. Her images are full of low-angle shots, radical framings, and powerful black and white contrasts, making them greatly expressive. Some of her most renowned series – Promenade des Anglais, Reflections, and Running Legs – were produced in the French Côte d’Azur and in New York.

At the end of her career Model worked with Gerhard Sander, grandson of the photographer August Sander, who became her art dealer and lab assistant. Her work as an instructor was also notable. She began teaching in 1949 at the California School of Fine Arts and continued to teach throughout her life at other institutions such as the New School for Social Research. Her role as a professor would leave a mark on some of the most important photographers of the following generation, such as Diane Arbus, Larry Fink, and Peter Hujar, to name a few.

Text from the Fundacion MAPFRE website

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Singer at the Metropole Café, New York
1946
Gelatin silver print
49.6 x 39.8 cm
The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy Lebon, Paris /
Keitelman, Brussels

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Woman with Veil, San Francisco
1949
Gelatin silver print
49.8 x 10.1 cm
Estate of Gerd Sander, Julian Sander Gallery, Cologne
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy of baudoin lebon and Avi Keitelman

Closeness that does not comfort

Model’s photographs are close. Uncomfortably close. Faces, bodies, gestures fill the frame, often to the limit of what is bearable. The famous tight cropping, often decided only in the darkroom, frees the people from their surroundings and confronts the viewer with full presence. There is no escaping. No decorative surroundings.

And yet there is no voyeurism. No mockery. Despite all the harshness, these images carry a form of respect, often with a good dose of humor or, depending on the subject, social criticism. You sense that someone is looking here, not looking down. There is tension hanging in the air – between ruthlessness and empathy – and it keeps the work relevant to this day.

Anonymous. “Zeit hinzusehen: Lisette Model in der Albertina,” on the ViennaCultgram website Nd [online] Cited 02/02/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Ollie McLaughlin, Hotel Viking, Newport Jazz Festival, Rhode Island
1956
Gelatin silver print
27.5 × 34.9cm
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy of baudoin lebon and Avi Keitelman

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Ella Fitzgerald
1954
Gelatin silver print

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Dizzy Gillespie, New York Jazz Festival
1956
Gelatin silver print

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
Bud Powell, New York Jazz Festival
1957
Gelatin silver print

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The Photographers’ Gallery website

Exhibition: ‘Zofia Rydet: Sociological Record’ at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 10th October, 2025 – 22nd February, 2026

Poland 1978-1990

Co-curators: Clare Grafik and Karol Hordziej

Zofia Rydet (Polish, 1911-1997)
From Sociological Record
1978-1990
© Zofia Rydet, courtesy of the Zofia Rydet Foundation

Photo-gene(ic)

I profoundly admire the work of Polish social documentary photographer Zofia Rydet.

There are no ‘look at me I’m the photographer’ flourishes to her photographs, no egotistical excess, just a version of reality pictured through direct flash photography – rural Polish life, interiors and ancestors, families and marriages, portraits of younger self, older self and the transience of time.

Here lives religion, wallpaper, stencils pasted directly onto thick, rough hewn walls, patterned, fabrics, youth and old age. A boy in his flat with a racing helmet and a poster of Brazilian Formula 1 driver Carlos Reutemann on the wall, bottles of gin and brandy above the door; a young girl, wall plastered with posters of Sting and the band The Police; a woman sitting on a chair, bare feet, rickety bed to left, portraits of wedding day and husband and life behind her. Ancient and modern.

Like August Sander’s unfinished magnum opus People of the 20th Century in which the photographer attempted “to produce a definitive atlas of the German people over the course of his lifetime” (Getty), Zofia Rydet’s archive, record, document, is “an unfinished atlas of memory” of a Polish way of life that is fast disappearing. Her stories of Polish humanity with their huts and habitations speaks to the essential nature, the rootedness, of a people and culture.

The souls are not photogenic, but through Rydet’s direct, engaging process they become photo-gene(ic), archetypes and representatives of ancestors past, present and future which together form the genetic make-up of Polish society. Rydet tells their stories with empathy and compassion, the artist “captivated by something worth preserving – especially the wonderful human stories I hear during these visits.”

These photographs hold the viewers attention because they mean something in this transient world of facile images. As Youssra Manlaykhaf cogently observes,

“Today, in an age when we document ourselves endlessly but often forget what those images mean, Rydet’s work feels newly vital. Her archive is a reminder that photography can still be an act of devotion, a way of saying I see you, and you matter. Rydet didn’t just photograph people; she photographed the fragile dignity of being human. And in doing so, she built a record not just for Poland, but for all of us; an unfinished atlas of memory, tender and eternal.”1

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Youssra Manlaykhaf. “The Unfinished Archive,” on The Photographers’ Gallery website Nd [Online] Cited 05/02/202. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Many thankx to The Photographers’ Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“I knock on the door, I say ‘hello’, and I shake hands.”

“Even if they don’t publish it… this will remain, not art perhaps, but a document of the times.”

“For me, photography is not just a visual image, but above all, a language I’d like to speak to ordinary people, not great artists. Photography’s greatest value lies in its informative role, its content – not in its transient artistic endeavours. The more my “Record” grows, the more I believe it will have lasting value. I’m convinced I’m on the right track – I still have so many plans, just not enough life ahead of me…”

“I know some people think I’m hypocritical, self-serving, telling these people they’re beautiful. But I truly see something interesting, beautiful in every person, and I’m captivated by something worth preserving – especially the wonderful human stories I hear during these visits. Each person is a story in itself, some very interesting, some instructive, sometimes moving…”

Zofia Ryde

Interview with the Zofia Rydet Foundation | The Photographers’ Gallery

Delve into the life and work of the warmly remembered Polish social documentarian, Zofia Rydet in an interview with the Zofia Rydet Foundation and Clare Grafik, Head of Exhibitions, The Photographers’ Gallery.

Sociological Record by Zofia Rydet is a sweepingly comprehensive documentary portrait of Polish domestic life which spans decades, eras, regions and cultures.

Head curator and art historian Karolina Ziębińska explorie the work and legacy of Zofia Rydet (1911-1997), one of Poland’s most significant post-war photographers.

Best known for her lifelong project The Sociological Record (1978-1990), Rydet sought to systematically document the interiors and inhabitants of Polish homes, creating a vast visual archive of everyday life during a time of profound social and political transformation.

In this talk, Ziębińska introduce Rydet’s distinctive approach to photography, situating her practice within the shifting cultural, historical and ideological contexts of 20th-century Poland. It also spotlights other areas of Rydet’s practice and is an opportunity to consider how Rydet’s work resonates within broader conversations about identity, memory and the role of the photograph as social document.

Installation view of the exhibition Zofia Rydet: Sociological Record at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

From 1978, when she was 67, Zofia Rydet (1911-1997) set out to photograph the inside of every Polish household. She would approach a home unannounced, knock, and warmly introduce herself and ask the people living there if they would like to take part in her project.

Rydet was always on the road, with a camera in her hand. For nearly three decades, she photographed people in their homes, still lives, building exteriors and landscapes. She also returned to the same houses several years after she first visited to document the transformation of rural Poland. The result – Sociological Record – is a monumental project and one of the most important achievements in 20th century Polish photography.

Rydet used photography to express everyday stories and capture the essence of what it meant to be human. Despite the project’s epic scope, the individual portraits often feel intimate and revealing. Her careful and considered practice spans decades and she worked on the project until her death in 1997.

Text from The Photographers’ Gallery website

Zofia Rydet (Polish, 1911-1997)
From Sociological Record
1978-1990
© Zofia Rydet, courtesy of the Zofia Rydet Foundation

Rydet is best known for The Sociological Record – an extraordinary lifelong project documenting thousands of domestic interiors and portraits across Poland from the late 1970s onwards. Her work captured the nuances of everyday life during a time of rapid social and political change, revealing how identity, class and belonging were expressed within the home. For me, Rydet’s photographs are a commentary on a particular period in time, a transition from communism to capitalism, a shift from rural to the urban and a way of seeing that span the personal and the collective. …

I discussed Sociological Record with my mum who also visited the exhibition. We were both deeply moved by the large vinyl image of a straw house surrounded by smaller photographs of other homes. It is heartwarming to see such intimate, everyday experiences documented and acknowledged in the Gallery – moments that resonate deeply with many Polish people living in the UK. …

The recurring presence of John Paul II in Rydet’s work also struck a familiar chord; his image continues to appear in Polish households both in the UK and in Poland, carrying with it layers of cultural memory, belonging, but also conflict. Some of Rydet’s portraits – with their lace curtains, tablecloths, patterned rugs and carefully arranged family photographs – reminded me of our own home in Poland. They share an aesthetic and emotional language that feels instantly recognisable: the way ancestors’ portraits watch quietly from the walls, the mix of pride and modesty in how people present their space. To see this visual culture acknowledged and valued within a major British art institution feels both affirming and long awaited – a recognition of a Polish history that has long existed yet has rarely been seen.

Zula Rabikowska. “Zula Rabikowska responds to Zofia Rydet’s Sociological Record,” on The Photographers’ Gallery website Nd [Online] Cited 06/02/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Zofia Rydet (Polish, 1911-1997)
From Sociological Record
1978-1990
© Zofia Rydet, courtesy of the Zofia Rydet Foundation

The Unfinished Archive

Delve into the life and work of the warmly remembered Polish social documentarian, Zofia Rydet

By the time Zofia Rydet began her greatest work, she was already in her sixties, an age when most photographers might be reflecting on what they’ve accomplished, not setting out to capture an entire nation. Yet that’s exactly what she did. From the late 1970s until a few years before the end of her life, Rydet roamed through towns and villages across Poland, camera in hand, knocking on doors and asking to come inside.

Her project, Sociological Record (Zapis socjologiczny), became one of the most extraordinary photographic archives of the twentieth century: over 20,000 black-and-white portraits, most taken inside a person’s home. The format rarely changed. Her subjects stand in their living rooms, surrounded by furniture, family photos, crucifixes, embroidery, clocks and wallpaper that tells as much of a story as their faces do. Every image is composed with the same direct flash, the same square frame, and the same feeling that time has briefly stood still.

At first glance, Rydet’s portraits might seem uniform, almost bureaucratic in their repetition. But look longer, and the sameness dissolves. You begin to notice the delicate individuality in each frame: the proud tilt of a chin, a mismatched chair, a child’s toy tucked behind an armchair. Each photograph becomes a world of its own.

Rydet was born in 1911 in Stanisławów, a city that no longer exists as it once did. Over her lifetime, Poland’s borders shifted, wars came and went, and entire ways of life vanished. Perhaps that’s why she photographed with such urgency. She once said she wanted to “save people from disappearing,” and in Sociological Record, that impulse becomes visible. Her archive reads like a collective portrait of Poland on the brink of transformation, the last breaths of a rural and domestic culture before modernity swept through. “I can already see the difference now, three or four years later – the huts are disappearing, being rebuilt… I miss the houses near Warsaw, but I’m afraid to go there…”

Before she began this monumental project, Rydet had already spent two decades photographing daily life: children playing in the streets, fishermen, women at markets. Her early images are tender and human, often filled with humour. But in the late 1970s, she found her true calling. Carrying her medium-format camera and a small flash, she entered the homes of strangers, sometimes by invitation, sometimes by bold insistence, and created what she saw as a kind of “photographic sociology.”

What’s remarkable is that Rydet’s approach, while systematic, never feels cold. Her use of flash flattens space so that every detail, faces, furniture, wallpaper and light becomes equally significant. It’s as if she believed that the soul of a person might just as easily reside in the pattern of a curtain as in their expression.

Her images speak not only of individuals but of collective identity: Polish Catholic iconography, working-class aspiration, domestic pride. And beneath it all, the quiet ache of time passing. In one photo, a couple stands shoulder to shoulder beneath their wedding portrait, two images separated by decades, yet bound by the same gaze. In another, a young boy stares directly at the camera, his future still unwritten.

Rydet continued photographing well into the 1980s, often assisted by younger artists who recognised the importance of what she was building. She never considered the project finished; how could she? The very premise, recording the human condition through its domestic spaces, was infinite by nature. When she died in 1997, she left behind a sprawling, incomplete monument to ordinary lives.

Today, in an age when we document ourselves endlessly but often forget what those images mean, Rydet’s work feels newly vital. Her archive is a reminder that photography can still be an act of devotion, a way of saying I see you, and you matter. Rydet didn’t just photograph people; she photographed the fragile dignity of being human. And in doing so, she built a record not just for Poland, but for all of us; an unfinished atlas of memory, tender and eternal.

Youssra Manlaykhaf. “The Unfinished Archive,” on The Photographers’ Gallery website Nd [Online] Cited 05/02/202. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Zofia Rydet (Polish, 1911-1997)
From Sociological Record
1978-1990
© Zofia Rydet, courtesy of the Zofia Rydet Foundation

Opening this October at The Photographers’ Gallery, as part of the UK/Poland Season 2025, Sociological Record is a landmark photographic project undertaken by Polish photographer Zofia Rydet. The series is a comprehensive documentary portrait of Polish domestic life which spans decades, eras, regions and cultures.

Starting in 1978, aged 67 years old, Zofia Rydet (1911-1997) set out on a mammoth task to photograph the inside of ‘every’ Polish household. Motivated by a desire to capture the ordinary, unsung populations, particularly of the countryside – but also covering towns and cities – Rydet would become increasingly obsessed with her mission to record the cultures and people that she sought out.

Rydet cut an unlikely figure on her field trips to different regions, a diminutive woman travelling by bus or with the help of friends who could drive her. Approaching households unannounced, she would knock and warmly introduce herself, asking those living there if they would like to take part in her project. Using a newly acquired wide angle lens and flash, Rydet was able to capture often darkened interiors of homes and their inhabitants in great detail. Asking her sitters not to smile and look straight ahead into the camera lens, her subjects are posed in their homes, rich in personal histories.

As the series progressed, Rydet would identify different categories within the Sociological Record such as ‘Women on Doorsteps’, ‘Professions’, ‘The Ill’, ‘Road Signs’, ‘Windows’, ‘Houses’ and ‘Televisions’. She would also come to identify more philosophical themes such as ‘Presence’ – noting the omniscience of the Polish Pope John Paul II’s image (inaugurated the same year Rydet started the Record in 1978) within Polish households. Others included ‘The Myth of Photography’ focusing on the central position and significance of family photographs within the home, such as traditional, hand-painted studio photographs of married couples in homes with little or no other decoration.

Through the cumulative interactions with her sitters, sometimes returning to households more than once over time, Rydet identified a change in her own personal and artistic journey and the role photography played within it. Creating over 20,000 images, many of which by the end of the project were never printed – Sociological Record is a monumental project and one of the most important achievements in 20th century Polish photography.

Rydet said of her hopes for the work: “Even if they don’t publish it… this will remain, not art perhaps, but a document of the times.” Rydet continued working on the Record until 1990, seven years before she died aged 86 years old.

This is the first substantial exhibition of Zofia Rydet’s Sociological Record in the UK. It focuses on the small proportion of rare prints she made from the series in her home darkroom, including the significant ‘People in Interiors’ works, and other sub-series such as ‘Women on Doorsteps’ and ‘Presence’. It will also feature ephemera from Rydet’s archives and original publications. Polish filmmaker Andrzej Różycki’s 1989 documentary film about Rydet, ‘Endlessly Distant Roads’, as well as Polish photographer Anna Beata Bohdziewicz’s documentary portraits of Rydet at work will also be on show.

Zofia Rydet: Sociological Record is part of the UK/Poland Season 2025. It is produced by The Photographers’’’ Gallery in partnership with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage), Poland, and the Zofia Rydet Foundation.

A new English catalogue will accompany the exhibition featuring texts by Zofia Rydet and 100 images from the Sociological Record series. Edited by co-curators of the exhibition, Clare Grafik and Karol Hordziej, image edit with the collaboration of Wojciech Nowicki. Produced by Lola Paprocki and designed by Brian Kanagaki / Kanagaki Studio. Co-published by The Photographers’ Gallery and Palm* Studios, with support from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

About Zofia Rydet

Zofia Rydet was born in 1911 in Stanisławów, Galicia – then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, later Poland, now Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. The daughter of a Polish lawyer and judge who served the rural populations of the area, her first photographs were in the regions of south-eastern Polish borderlands.

Following the brutal and tumultuous occupation of Nazi Germany in World War II and the region’s absorption into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, her family fled into the newly defined borders of Poland at the end of the war to Rabka and then Bytom in Upper Silesia. There she would focus on her passion for photography, as one of the few women members of the Gliwice Photography Society, which she joined in 1954. She met other avant-garde photographers, became a photography teacher and began sending her photographs to international and national competitions.

Her artistic career developed through many distinct but overlapping phases which included the seminal series and photobook Little Man (Mały Człowiek), which drew on her many photographs of children taken during her national and international travels, highlighting humanist approaches to documentary photography and emphasising the complexities and challenges of childhood. Her long-standing surrealist collage series The World of Feelings and Imagination (Świat uczuć i wyobraźni) also marked an important expressive phase in her creative practice. Sociological Record (Zapis socjologiczny) would become her final and largest artistic project.

About Adam Mickiewicz Institute

The Adam Mickiewicz Institute (AMI) brings Polish culture to people around the world. Being a state institution, it creates lasting interest in Polish culture and art through strengthening the presence of Polish artists on the global stage. It initiates innovative projects, supports international cooperation and cultural exchanges. It promotes the work of both established and promising artists, showing the diversity and richness of our culture. The Adam Mickiewicz Institute is also responsible for the Culture.pl website, a comprehensive source of knowledge about Polish culture. For more information please visit: www.iam.pl.

Press release from The Photographers’ Gallery

Portrait of Zofia Rydet Nd

Zofia Rydet and photographer friends Nd

Zofia Rydet with camera and subjects Nd

The Photographers’ Gallery
16-18 Ramillies Street
London
W1F 7LW

Opening hours:
Mon – Wed: 10.00 – 18.00
Thursday – Friday: 10.00 – 20.00
Saturday: 10.00 – 18.00
Sunday: 11.00 – 18.00

Photographic series: Marcus Bunyan. ‘Metropolis’ 2025-2026

February 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
No. 1 Brewery B
2026
from the series Metropolis

This is a selection of images from the new series. Please see the whole series on my website.

The base images for this series of work come from a book on the history of St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin published in 1931. These images have then been reflected, distorted, overlapped and filters have been used to produce the desired feeling. Each image has a different number of variations depending on this feeling. The 75 images in the series are sequenced as in the book.

The influences on the work were the architecture in Fritz Lang’s 1937 film Metropolis; the surrealist photography of Dora Maar notably her image Le Simulateur (The Pretender) 1936; the modernist photographs of factory machines by artists such as Jakob Tuggener and Albert Renger-Patzsch; and the prisons of Piranesi’s etchings published in Carceri d’invenzione, often translated as Imaginary Prisons, c. 1745 to 1750.

Please click on the photographs to see a larger version of the image.
Please view the work on a large computer screen if possible.
Please see the whole series on my website.
Many thankx to Elizabeth Gertsakis for her invaluable help.

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
No. 2 Brewery
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Boiler House B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Old Engine A
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Electric Power Station A'
2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Electric Power Station A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Compressor Machines A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Compressor Machines A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Refrigerating Plant A
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Robert St. Malt Store – Exterior A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Robert St. Malt Store – Exterior B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Robert St. Malt Store – Exterior A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Robert St. Malt Store – Interior A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Robert St. Malt Store – Interior A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Loading Malt Wagons B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Loading Malt Wagons D' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Loading Malt Wagons B, D
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Cooke's Lane Malt House A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Cooke's Lane Malt House C' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cooke’s Lane Malt House A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Barley in Process of Being Malted
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Malt Train Outside No. 2 Brewery B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Hops in Store A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Hops in Store C' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Hops in Store A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Loading Hop Wagons A'
2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Loading Hop Wagons B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Loading Hop Wagons A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Regulating Mash Temperatures B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Copper Stage A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Copper Stage B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Copper Stage A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
“Striking Off” a Copper
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
A Corner of No. 11 Vat House A
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Vat House – Another View B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Vat House – Another View C' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Vat House – Another View A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Cask Making Shop – Blazing A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Cask Making Shop – Blazing B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cask Making Shop – Blazing A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Cask Magazine A'
2026 from the series 'Metropolis'

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cask Magazine A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Cooperage Yard – Another View B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Cooperage Yard – Another View F' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cooperage Yard A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Cask Cleansing Shed A'
2026 from the series 'Metropolis'

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cask Cleansing Shed A-D
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Racking Room, Showing Casks being Filled
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Loading Railway Wagons
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Low Platform Vehicle B'
2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Low Platform Vehicle A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Some of the Delivery Fleet About to Start
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Loading Wharf on River Liffey C' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Loading Wharf on River Liffey D' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Loading Wharf on River Liffey C-D
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan website

The Photographers’ Gallery website

Exhibition: ‘Boris Mikhailov: Ukrainian Diary’ at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 10th October, 2025 – 22nd February, 2026

Curators: Laurie Hurwitz and Shoair Mavlian in collaboration with Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Installation view of the exhibition Boris Mikhailov: Ukrainian Diary at The Photographers’ Gallery, London showing at left, photographs from his series Luriki (1971-1985, below) and Sots Art (c. 1975-1986, below); and at right, a photograph from the series National Hero (1991, below)

“The world is made up of many worlds. Some are connected and some are not.”

From the film Perfect Days, 2023 directed by Wim Wenders

I love this man’s work. I feel very connected to his worlds. His constructed discontinuities. His ruptures, compressions, ambiguities. His social codifications of rich, poor, haves and have nots, and, as someone said, his portrayal of “the overlooked, the uncomfortable, and the unabashedly human.”

“Mikhailov’s visual pairings deliver unambiguous messages, almost violent in their straightforwardness. Multiple juxtapositions of unconsciously drunk men prostrating under passers-by feet to that of stray dogs, dead or alive, explicitly comment on human’s life disintegration to the state of an animal, its reduction to bare bones – and yes, an animal carcass, a metaphoric sign of abject poverty, is also present in this visual narrative in a scene with two men dragging a piece of spinal vertebrae of a large creature, a cow or, perhaps, a horse. Rotten banana peels sit across the page from infected flaccid limbs and genitalia. A posture of a naked woman reclining on a sullied mattress echoes that of a rubber sex doll staring from the next page. A close-up of a bruised woman’s breast with a crude stitches over a wound parallels gaping cracks of a damaged mail box. Thus the physical body of a homeless person starts speaking about the city as an organism, equally abused and dismembered. Wounds inflected upon flesh are surface manifestations of wounds inflected upon the city and the society at large.”1

“By subverting idealised Soviet imagery, he proposed a raw, ironic, and unremarkable version of reality, always seeking to capture the spirit of his times through the everyday. Or, better yet, to condense that spirit for others, not through words but through a visual semantics of his own making.”2

Experimental, conceptual, staged, performative, his photographs appeal to my subversive nature, prodding as they do at the status quo. His “rebellious visual language” takes us on a journey – his journey, Ukraine’s journey – “a journey through time, loss, and transformation.”

I wrote of his work in an earlier posting on this exhibition when it was at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris:

“Mikhailov’s photographs are emotionally powerful, politically astute and uncannily effective conversations with the world… about subjects that should matter to all of us: war, destitution, poverty, oppression, and the power of an authoritarian state to control the thoughts and actions of human beings under its control. They are about the freedom of individual people to live their lives as they choose; and they are about the freedom of a group of people which form a country to not be subjugated under the rule of another country to which they are historically linked.

His photographs are about choice and difference, they are about life.

They perform a task, that is, they bring into consciousness … the ground on which we stand together, against oppression, for freedom. Of course, no country is without its problems, its historical traumas, prejudices and corruption but the alternative is being ruled over without a choice, which is totally unacceptable.

Against the “failed promises of both communism and capitalism” and the “economic history that is written on the flesh” of the poor, Boris Mikhaïlov’s Ukrainian diary documents day after day the dis-ease and fragility, but also resilience, of his subjects and the world in which they live. He uses his art as a visual tool for cultural resistance. And the thing about his images is: you remember them. They are unlike so much bland, conceptual contemporary photography because these are powerful, emotional images. In their being, in their presence, they resonate within you.”

In this earlier posting you will find a longer text that I wrote, descriptions of the each of the artist’s series and more images. I hope you can view the posting.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Extract from Olena Chervonik, “Urban Opera of Boris Mikhailov,” on the MOKSOP website, 9th April 2020 [Online] Cited 27/01/2026

2/ Kateryna Filyuk. “Recalcitrant Diarist of the Everyday,” on The Photographers’ Gallery website Nd [Online] Cited 05/02/2026

Many thankx to The Photographers’ Gallery, London for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“I chose to focus on ordinary, everyday scenes and the search for formal solutions to translate this mundaneness into photography.”

Boris Mikhailov, “Everyone has became more circumspect…,” in Tea Coffee Cappuccino. Köln: König, 2011, p. 230

“Central themes – heroism, failure, power, the body, identity, absurdity, ideology – recur throughout, not as definitive conclusions but as open-ended provocations that invite sustained contemplation. In this way, the exhibition operates as both a temporal sequence and a constellation of moments – fragmented yet interconnected – that collectively evoke the complexity, contradictions, and richness of Mikhailov’s visionary practice.”

Laurie Hurwitz curator

“The explicit, dramatic and total power of the absolute monarch had given place to what Michel Foucault has called a diffuse and pervasive ‘microphysics of power’, operating unremarked in the smallest duties and gestures of everyday life. The seat of this capillary power was a new ‘technology’: that constellation of institutions – including the hospital, the asylum, the school, the prison, the police force – whose disciplinary methods and techniques of regulated examination produced, trained and positioned a hierarchy of docile social subjects in the form required by the capitalist division of labour for the orderly conduct of social and economic life.”

John Tagg. The Burden of Representation. Essays on Photographies and Histories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993

From the beginning, we conceived two video works as conceptual bookends. At the entrance, Yesterday’s Sandwich – a seminal project from the late 1960s – presents a hallucinatory sequence of double exposures set to music by Pink Floyd. These psychedelic, surreal images, rejecting Soviet visual orthodoxy, open up a new, rebellious visual language. At the exit, Temptation of Death (2019) offers a quieter, meditative counterpoint. Combining images from a crematorium in Ukraine with intimate portraits and cityscapes, it evokes the myth of Charon, ferryman of the dead, and a journey through time, loss, and transformation. Together, these two works, created nearly fifty years apart, frame the exhibition with a meditation on mortality, reinvention, and the fragile persistence of life.

Lucile Brizard. “”Where are we now?”: An Exclusive Interview with Photographer Boris Mikhailov on Ukraine’s Past and Present,” on the United 24 Media website, October 29, 2015 [Online] Cited 27/01/2026

Luriki, 1971-1985

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938)
From the series Luriki (Coloured Soviet Portrait)
1971-1985
Hand-coloured gelatin silver print
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Sots Art, 1975-1986

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938)
From the series Sots Art
1982-1983
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

National Hero, 1992

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938) from the series 'National Hero' 1991

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series National Hero
1991
Chromogenic print
120 x 81cm
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Installation view of the exhibition Boris Mikhailov: Ukrainian Diary at The Photographers’ Gallery, London showing at left, photographs from his series Salt Lake (1986, below); at at right in the background, photographs from his series I am not I (1992, below)

Salt Lake, 1986

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series Salt Lake
1986
Chromogenic print toned sepia
75.5 x 104.5cm
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

I Am Not I, 1992

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series I am not I
1992
Sepia silver print
30 x 20cm
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

A major retrospective of work by influential Ukrainian artist Boris Mikhailov (b. 1938, Kharkiv, Ukraine).

Ukrainian Diary is the first major UK retrospective of work by Boris Mikhailov, one of the most influential contemporary artists from Eastern Europe. Mikhailov has explored social and political subjects for more than fifty years through his experimental photographic work.

Described as an outsider, a trickster and ‘a kind of proto-punk’, Mikhailov combines humour, mischief and tragedy in his pioneering practice, ranging from documentary photography and conceptual work, to painting and performance. Since the 1960s, he has been creating a powerful record of the tumultuous changes in Ukraine that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ukrainian Diary brings together work from over twenty of his most important series, up to his more recent projects. Viewed today, against the backdrop of current events and ongoing war in Ukraine, Mikhailov’s work is all the more poignant and enlightening.

Text from The Photographers’ Gallery website

Red, 1965-1978

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938) from the series 'Red' 1968-1975

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series Red
1968-1975
Digital chromogenic print
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

“The word ‘red’ in Russian contains the root of the word for beauty. It also means the Revolution and evokes blood and the red flag. Everyone associates red with Communism. Maybe that’s enough. But few people know that red suffused all our lives, at all levels.”

Boris Mikhailov

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series Red
1968-1975
Digital chromogenic print
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Yesterday’s Sandwich, 1960s-1970s

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938)
From the series Yesterday’s Sandwich
1960s-1970s
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938)
From the series Yesterday’s Sandwich
1966-1968
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938)
From the series Yesterday’s Sandwich
1960s-1970s
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938)
From the series Yesterday’s Sandwich
1966-1968
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Ukrainian Diary is the first major UK retrospective of work by Boris Mikhailov (b. 1938, Kharkiv). One of the most influential contemporary artists from Eastern Europe, Mikhailov has explored social and political subjects for more than fifty years through his experimental photographic work.

Described as an outsider, a trickster and ‘a kind of proto-punk’, Mikhailov combines humour, mischief and tragedy in his pioneering work, ranging from documentary photography and conceptual work, to painting and performance. Since the 1960s, he has been creating a powerful record of life in the Ukraine and the tumultuous changes that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union.

From early underground works and images of everyday life in Kharkiv, to his self-depreciating self-portraits which mock traditional Soviet masculine stereotypes, Mikhailov creates an ambiguous, fragmented view of a world in constant flux. His photographs contradict the onesideness of Soviet ideology, especially during the time when photography was heavily controlled and censored in the Soviet Union.

Ukrainian Diary brings together work from over twenty of Mikhailov’s most important series, including Yesterday’s Sandwich, I am not I, Salt Lake, Red, Sots Art, Luriki, Case History and Theatre of War.

Self-taught and ‘somewhat careless’ (in his words), Yesterday’s Sandwich (1960s-1970s), one of his most important series, began as an accident when a handful of slides stuck together. He was fascinated by the result and continued to randomly layer slides, creating new combinations which ‘reflected the dualism and contradictions of Soviet Society’.

Mikhailov created ‘bad photography’ as a way to undermine official Soviet aesthetics, as introduced in the series Black Archive (1968-1979). Badly printed, damaged or poor-quality productions were an artistic device that Mikhailov described as ‘lousy photography for a lousy reality’.

The series Red (1965-1978) bridges documentary photography and conceptual art – over 70 images taken in the late 1960s and 1970s highlighting the colour red in everyday objects and scenes. His documenting of red reveals the extent to which communist ideology saturated daily life.

Together his uncompromising, subversive work is a powerful photographic narrative on Ukraine’s contemporary history.

The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the MEP – Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris.

About Boris Mikhailov

Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1938, Boris Mikhailov is a self-taught photographer. Having trained as an engineer, he was first introduced to photography when he was given a camera to document the state-owned factory where he worked. With access to a camera, he took advantage of this opportunity to take nude photographs of his first wife – an act forbidden under Soviet norms – which he developed and printed in the factory’s laboratory. He was fired when the photographs were found by KGB agents. From then he pursued photography full time, using it as a subversive tool and operating as part of the underground art scene. His work first gained international exposure in the 1990s with the series Case History, a shockingly direct portrayal of the realities of post-Soviet life in the Ukraine.

Press release from The Photographers’ Gallery

Series of Four, early 1980s

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series Series of four
1982-1983
Silver gelatin print, unique copy
From a 20-part series
Each 18 x 23.80cm
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

At Dusk, 1993

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series At Dusk
1993
Chromogenic print
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Recalcitrant Diarist of the Everyday

Curator and researcher, Kateryna Filyuk, explores the intimate diaristic qualities of Boris Mikhailov’s subversive body of work.

Even before seeing Ukrainian Diary at The Photographers’ Gallery, I found myself thinking about its title. The idea of a diary fits naturally with Mikhailov’s work: instead of creating a grand, official narrative inherent to Soviet photography, he developed an intimate and fragmented way of seeing. The term Ukrainian, however, is less straightforward. Some of his more recent bodies of work that directly address Ukrainian events: Parliament  (2015-17); and Temptation of Death  (2014-19), which adopts the Kyiv Crematorium as its binding motif, are not included in the exhibition.

Mikhailov began challenging Soviet photographic norms as early as the mid-1960s, working with a circle of like-minded friends. At the time, photographing “for no reason” could be equated with spying; showing Soviet life as anything less than ideal was seen as an attack on communist values; and photographing the naked body could result in prison. Mikhailov did all of this and more. He turned his camera toward mundane subjects, mixed genres freely and questioned photography’s claim to present an ultimate truth. By subverting idealised Soviet imagery, he proposed a raw, ironic, and unremarkable version of reality, always seeking to capture the spirit of his times through the everyday. Or, better yet, to condense that spirit for others, not through words but through a visual semantics of his own making.

Art historian Nadiia Bernard-Kovalchuk reflects on whether Ukrainian is an appropriate label for the Kharkiv School of Photography, of which Mikhailov is a founding figure. She writes that ”the school’s activities stretch between two heterogeneous historical realities: on the one hand, Brezhnev’s ‘stagnation’ and the perestroika fatal to the USSR, and on the other, the economically brutal birth of the Ukrainian state.” [2] This dramatic time span, during which Ukrainians experienced long-awaited yet destabilising transformation, offers a more fitting temporality for understanding Mikhailov’s work in Ukrainian Diary. Geographically, most of his projects take place in what was first Soviet Ukraine and later became independent Ukraine. Temporally, however, they exist within a landscape marked by ruptures, discontinuities, and perpetual new beginnings.

In the preface to one of his most audacious works, Case History  (1997-98), Mikhailov reflects on the lack of a photographic record documenting complex historical shifts in Ukraine: ”I was aware that I was not allowed to let it happen once again that some periods of life would be erased.” [3] After returning to Kharkiv from a year in Berlin, he was struck by the stark divide between the newly rich and the newly poor, a process already in full swing. Yet his aim in photographing the homeless did not follow the classic documentary model, such as the USA Farm Security Administration’s work, which sought to highlight a social problem and prompt state intervention. Instead, by showing the everyday lives of those most affected by the collapse, Mikhailov “directly assaults the onlookers’ sensitivity” [4] and “transgresses the acceptable limits of representation,” [5] His goal was not to provoke pity or shock though.

Rather, Mikhailov asserts something more fundamental: the individual’s right to exist and express themselves beyond convention. Through his unwavering attention to ordinary lives, he bears witness to massive transformations unfolding beyond any single person’s control. Ukrainian Diary, then, is not simply a national label or a chronological record. It is a testament to how one artist has persistently documented a world defined by instability, reinvention, and the fragile, but enduring presence, of everyday life.

Kateryna Filyuk

Kateryna Filyuk is a curator and researcher, who holds PhD from the University of Palermo. In 2017-2021 she served as a chief curator at Izolyatsia., a Platform for cultural initiatives in Kyiv. Before joining Izolyatsia, she was co-curator of the Festival of Young Ukrainian Artists at Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv (2017). The co-founder of the publishing house 89books in Palermo, she has participated in curatorial programmes at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin, 2017), De Appel (Amsterdam, 2015-16), the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, 2014) and the Gwangju Biennale (2012). In 2023 Filyuk was a visiting PhD student at the Central European University (Vienna) and in 2024 a visiting researcher at FOTOHOF Archiv (Salzburg) and the Predoctoral Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Rome). Currently she develops a two-year scholarly initiative – the Methodology Seminars for Art History in Ukraine in collaboration with the Bibliotheca Hertziana and the Max Weber Foundation’s Research Centre Ukraine.

Footnotes

1/ Boris Mikhailov, “Everyone has became more circumspect…,” in Tea Coffee Cappuccino (Köln: König, 2011), 230.
2/ Nadiia Bernard-Kovalchuk, The Kharkiv School of Photography: Game Against Apparatus. Kharkiv: Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography, 2020, 17.
3/ Boris Mikhailov, Case History (Zurich: Scalo, 1999), 7.
4/ “Symbolic Bodies, Real Pain: Post-Soviet History, Boris Mikhailov and the Impasse of Documentary Photography,” in The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture (London: Wallflower Press, 2007), 58.
5/ Olena Chervonik, “Urban Opera of Boris Mikhailov,” MOKSOP, accessed November 25, 2025

Text from The Photographers’ Gallery website

Installation view of the exhibition Boris Mikhailov: Ukrainian Diary at The Photographers’ Gallery, London showing photographs from his series Case History (1997-1998, below)

Case History, 1997-1998

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series Case History
1997-1998
Chromogenic print
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938) from the series 'Case History' 1997-1998

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series Case History
1997-1998
Chromogenic print
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

Urban opera of Boris Mikhailov

Olena Chervonik

In the [Case History] book preface, Mikhailov explains that already in 1997 he vividly apprehended the rupture of Ukrainian society into new, burgeoning social strata, when the new rich and the new poor began to acquire features of class identities with their own psychology and behavioural modalities. The new rich were already hard to approach, protecting themselves with bodyguards and other social fences. The new poor, however, specifically the bomzhes (homeless people with no social support) could still allow an outsider in their midst – this was “a chance”, according to Mikhailov, that could only last for a short period of time. Most of the book’s protagonists had only recently lost their homes. Their rapidly deteriorating social position was still uncertain, malleable, and flickering with hope. Yet, the transformation was inevitable, which propelled the artist to act: “For me it was very important that I took their photos when they were still like “normal” people. I made a book about the people who got into trouble but didn’t manage to harden so far.” [2] …

Mikhailov’s visual pairings deliver unambiguous messages, almost violent in their straightforwardness. Multiple juxtapositions of unconsciously drunk men prostrating under passers-by feet to that of stray dogs, dead or alive, explicitly comment on human’s life disintegration to the state of an animal, its reduction to bare bones – and yes, an animal carcass, a metaphoric sign of abject poverty, is also present in this visual narrative in a scene with two men dragging a piece of spinal vertebrae of a large creature, a cow or, perhaps, a horse. Rotten banana peels sit across the page from infected flaccid limbs and genitalia. A posture of a naked woman reclining on a sullied mattress echoes that of a rubber sex doll staring from the next page. A close-up of a bruised woman’s breast with a crude stitches over a wound parallels gaping cracks of a damaged mail box. Thus the physical body of a homeless person starts speaking about the city as an organism, equally abused and dismembered. Wounds inflected upon flesh are surface manifestations of wounds inflected upon the city and the society at large. …

The majority of Mikhailov’s photographs provide no emotional crutches to lean on, no mechanism of ennobling or aestheticising infected abused flesh of the homeless. It is presented “as is”: frontal, looming large with all its detailed naturalistic vividness. If there is a visual code that Mikhailov activates in these images, it comes from a clinical rather than an art discourse, from surveilling patents for medical records. It is a discourse that John Tagg described as a nineteenth century record-keeping practice associated with certain disciplinary institutions such as an asylum or a prison that with the help of photography created a new social body of dependent subjects upon whom power could be exercised due to their newly-minted subaltern position.

Art, following Barthes’ dictum, domesticates and tames photography [21]. It generates the level of “studium”, accepted cultural knowledge that veils the trauma, renders it familiar, therefore trivial, therefore easily dismissed. Mikhailov makes his viewers constantly oscillate between images that give themselves for contemplation and images that confront with their clinical nature that can be scrutinised and observed but certainly not contemplated. Not one or the other type of image, but the switch between the two unsettles the viewing process. Mikhailov orchestrates poses and gestures of his subjects to create this visual roller-coster of plunging in and out of the aesthetic.

2/ Boris Mikhailov, Case History (Zurich: Scalo, 1985)
21/ Matthias Christen, “Symbolic Bodies, Real Pain: Post-Soviet History, Boris Mikhailov and the Impasse of Documentary Photography,” in The Image and the Witness. Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture (London: Wallflower Press, 2007), 52-66

Extract from Olena Chervonik, “Urban Opera of Boris Mikhailov,” on the MOKSOP website, 9th April 2020 [Online] Cited 27/01/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Dance, 1978

Boris Mikhaïlov (Ukrainian, b. 1938)
From the series Dance
1978
Chromogenic print
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov

The Theater of War, Second Act, Time Out, 2013

Boris Mikhaïlov (Russian, b. 1938)
From the series The Theater of War, Second Act, Time Out
2013
Chromogenic print
© Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Collection Akademie der Künste, Berlin

The Photographers’ Gallery
16-18 Ramillies Street
London
W1F 7LW

Opening hours:
Mon – Wed: 10.00 – 18.00
Thursday – Friday: 10.00 – 20.00
Saturday: 10.00 – 18.00
Sunday: 11.00 – 18.00

The Photographers’ Gallery website

Exhibition: ‘Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth’ at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 10th October, 2025 – 22nd February, 2026

Curator: Taous Dahmani, art historian and writer. The exhibition was developed in collaboration with Autofoto (Rafael Hortala Vallve and Corinne Quin) and features archival material from Raynal Pellicer

Untitled [Women Photobooth Portraits]
c. 1940s-1950s

This “small archival display celebrating 100 years of the much-loved photobooth” (which occurred in 2025) – no installation photographs available – seems not a patch on one of the best photography exhibitions on Art Blart in 2025: Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August 2025 which introduced us to “Alan Adler (2932-2024), who while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world… For over 50 years, Adler maintained a fleet of photobooths across Melbourne / Narrm, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station.”

There are still some delightful, happy, joyful snapshots in this posting however.

Pay the money, cross the threshold of the booth, draw the curtain, adjust the seat, comport yourself into whatever “pose” you choose, then perform for each flash of the Time Machine.

Captured in a space of privacy and experimentation these portraits of the self (your essential being at that moment in time), eventually, minutes later, reveal you to yourself.

Some conforming, some rebelling, some crossing the taboo of self-revealing.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to The Photographers’ Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Practical at first – cheap, quick and accessible identity photos – the booth quickly became something else: a private stage. Behind the curtain, anyone could perform beyond the gaze of a photographer. Sitters experimented alone or packed in with friends, kissing, laughing, trying on disguises or staring back with deadpan seriousness. The Photomaton promised autonomy: pull the curtain, face the lens, decide how to appear. Some likened the ritual to a slot machine: drop a coin, wait for the surprise. Josepho’s invention, in hindsight, feels like the ancestor of the selfie: it put image-making directly into the hands of its subjects, a century before smartphones did the same. …

In our digital world, we’re used to photographs that are instant, endless and easily stored or deleted. By contrast, the analogue photobooth resists perfection. Control is never total: the flashes are blinding, the stool wobbles, the timing is merciless. Each strip bears the marks of chance – a blink, a smirk, a blur, a half-formed gesture. That unpredictability is its charm, giving the images a peculiar energy that no app filter can replicate.

Their resurgence taps into the wider appetite or the tactile and the ‘vintage’: objects that feel authentic precisely because they escape the seamlessness of the digital. The photobooth doesn’t have a photographer mediating or directing the sitter. It’s a space of agency and play, where friends cram together or someone experiments alone, producing an image that can be private or shared, that can be spontaneous or completely staged.

In contemporary culture, where self-presentation is curated and optimised online, the photobooth is a refreshing counterpoint. The strips are imperfect, uneditable and physical – small paper relics that capture a moment in time with all its messiness intact. That’s why they resonate now: they remind us that identity is not just polished images, but also the accidents, surprises and fleeting gestures that make us human.”

Taous Dahmani, curator, quoted in Ellis Tree. “The cooler, elder sibling of the selfie turns 100: Celebrating the centenary of the photobooth,” on the It’s Nice That website 10 October 2025 [Online] Cited 27/01/2026

Installation view of the AUTOFOTO photobooth at the exhibition Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

Anonymous photographer. 'Portrait of Anatol Josepho in his Photomaton' United States of America, 1927 from the exhibition 'Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth' at The Photographers' Gallery, London, October 2025 - February 2026

Anonymous photographer
Portrait of Anatol Josepho in his Photomaton
United States of America, 1927
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

French Photomaton Advertising “6 photos in 8 minutes. Identity”
1927
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

8 Poses Strip
USA, 1927
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

8 Poses Strip (details)
USA, 1927
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

“Always thinking of you”
United States of America, 1930s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

A special, small archival display celebrating 100 years of the much-loved photobooth.

2025 marks 100 years since the invention of the photobooth in New York. A game-changer for the world of photography, photobooths became an everyday sight in cities around the world.

In the 1950s and 1960s, photobooths were a common feature at fairs, shopping centres and train stations. With no technical knowledge needed and no operator, anyone could step behind the curtain, alone or crammed in with friends, put their money in the slot and strike a pose. The booths were loved by everyone, from John Lennon and Yoko Ono, to John and Jacqueline Kennedy, and used by artist Andy Warhol for his famous series of self-portraits.

These popular coin-operated booths began to disappear with the rise of digital photography in the 1990s. Now, restored by dedicated experts, analogue booths are reappearing in cities across the world and enjoying a resurgence of interest and delight with modern-day fans.

This autumn we’re celebrating the centenary by telling the story of the much-loved photobooth. Through a small archival display, Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth will explore the history, imperfections and quirks of the booth. There’s also a 1960s analogue booth at the Gallery for everyone to create their own selfie souvenir and a live feed to see the unique mechanics of the booth in action.

Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth features work from the collection of Raynal Pellicer and is part of a year-long programme of centenary celebrations, in partnership with AUTOFOTO.

Text from The Photographers’ Gallery website

Photomaton Envelope
1940s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

Photomaton Pochette
France, c. 1930s-1950s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

Couple
c. 1930s-1950s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

Couples
c. 1930s-1950s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

Couples (details)
c. 1930s-1950s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

This autumn The Photographers’ Gallery celebrates 100 years of the much-loved photobooth.

Through a special archival display, Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth looks back on the history of the photobooth and explores its intimate charms, imperfections and quirks.

2025 marks the year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the invention of the analogue photobooth by Anatol Josepho. His first Photomaton appeared on Broadway in New York in 1925. The photobooth was a game-changer for the world of photography and quickly became an everyday sight in cities around the world.

A combined studio and photography lab in one place, booths offered the first affordable access to photography. With no technical knowledge needed and no operator, anyone could step behind the curtain, put their money in the slot and strike a pose.

After the success of the first booth, when over 7,500 New Yorkers used the booth in its first 5 days, global success quickly followed. The first photobooth launched in the UK in Selfridges, London, in 1928 and was an immediate hit.

In the 1950s and 1960s, photobooths were a common feature at fairs, shopping centres and train stations. These intimate inexpensive spaces gave everyone the freedom to control their own images. Behind the curtain, whether alone or crammed in with friends, the photobooth was a playground, beyond the gaze of a photographer. The booths were loved by everyone, from John Lennon and Yoko Ono, to John and Jacqueline Kennedy, and used by artist Andy Warhol for his famous series of self-portraits.

The coin-operated booths, once ever-present on high streets and stations, disappeared with the rise of digital photography in the 1990s. Now, restored by dedicated experts, analogue booths are reappearing in cities across the world and enjoying a resurgence of interest and delight with modern-day fans. Alongside the display of archive prints, vintage strips and materials, there’ll also be a booth at the Gallery for everyone to create their own selfie souvenir and a live feed to see the unique mechanics of the booth in action.

Strike a Pose! 100 Years of the Photobooth features work from the collection of Raynal Pellicer and is part of a year-long programme of centenary celebrations, in partnership with AUTOFOTO.

AUTOFOTO are analogue photobooth experts who have been rescuing and restoring original auto-photography machines for over a decade. Their restored machines can be found in locations across London and Barcelona. Through careful restoration and servicing, AUTOFOTO’s mission is to ensure the survival of these beautiful machines and photobooth photography for future generations.

Press release from The Photographers’ Gallery, London

Untitled [Color Photobooth Portraits]
c. 1940s-1950s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

'Untitled [Color Photobooth Portraits]' c. 1940s-1950s (detail)

Untitled [Color Photobooth Portraits] (details)
c. 1940s-1950s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

Strip
United States of America, 1950s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

“Couple”, Photomaton
Blackpool, England, 1950s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

“French Couple”, Six Strips
France, 1960s
Courtesy Raynal Pellicer

The Photographers’ Gallery
16-18 Ramillies Street
London
W1F 7LW

Opening hours:
Mon – Wed: 10.00 – 18.00
Thursday – Friday: 10.00 – 20.00
Saturday: 10.00 – 18.00
Sunday: 11.00 – 18.00

Exhibition: ‘Gabrielle Hébert: Amour fou à la Villa Médicis’ at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Exhibition dates: 28th October, 2025 – 15th February, 2026

Curator: Marie Robert, Chief Curator, photography and cinema Musée d’Orsay

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Peppino Scossa endormi dans les bras de sa mère, 11 août 1888
(Peppino Scossa asleep in his mother’s arms, August 11, 1888)
1888
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
8.7 x 11.7cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Amour fou, amour tu

This is one of those unheralded exhibitions on a photographer that you may never have heard of that Art Blart likes to promote.

Gabrielle Hébert as she became, married the painter Ernest Hébert in 1880. She was 28, he was 63. From 1888 until his death in 1908 at the age of 91, she documented her husband painting, their surroundings and their affluent, upper class social milieux. And then she stopped, she gave up photography, she lost the amour fou, that incredible passion that had driven her for so many years to take photographs.

While “her photographs provide an intimate look into the artistic life of the time, portraying artists, models, and domestic scenes” they also do something more – they represent the viewpoint of a female artist which challenges the masculine conventions of the day. “Overturning gender stereotypes, she watched him obsessively and was never tired of capturing him on film… Thanks to her images, which she shared and exchanged with her friends and family, she became recognised as an auteur and gained social status in a milieu where artistic creation was the preserve of men.” (Text from the Musée d’Orsay website)

Further, from my point of view, Gabrielle Hébert was not an amateur photographer taking snapshots for her “visual diary” but an artist fully conversant with current trends in photography. While there are the standard documentary photographs of sculptures and Ernest Hébert and friends painting … there is so much more!

Photographs such as the allegorical Peppino Scossa endormi dans les bras de sa mère, 11 août 1888 (Peppino Scossa asleep in his mother’s arms, August 11, 1888) (1888, above) and La duchesse de Mondragone et l’une de ses bellessoeurs posent pour une Annonciation, juin 1890 (The Duchess of Mondragone and one of her sisters-in-law pose for an Annunciation, June 1890) (1890, below) are redolent of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879).

Other photographs such as Lys des parterres, juin 1890 (Flowerbed lilies, June 1890) (1890, below) evidence her consummate skill at capturing the perfume of a place whilst images such as Procession sur le port de Brindisi (Pouilles) (Procession in the port of Brindisi (Apulia)) (1893, below) show her ability to picture the informality of large groups of people and the atmosphere of the scene.

Then there are the joyous highs of a modern woman looking at the world with perceptive eyes. In the photograph Amalia Scossa et Ernest Hébert à sa peinture La Vierge au chardonneret sur la terrasse du campanile (around 1891, below), Gabrielle Hébert was not afraid to dissect the pictorial plane with strong verticals, horizontal and diagonal lines, providing the viewer with the feeling of an almost voyeuristic in-sight into the creative scene, each section of the photograph holding out attention – two chairs, one upturned on the other, supporting the umbrella shielding the painter from the sun; the Virgin and her child filling the distant space; the painting on the easel leading our eye down and then back up into the cloaked, wizened figure of the artist holding his easel; folding stool for him to rest and other accoutrements earthing the foreground; and the massive pillars slightly askew enclosing our furtive view. Magnificent!

My favourite photograph in the posting is Garçon au coin de la place Zocodover, Tolède, 31 octobre 1898 (Boy on the corner of Zocodover Square, Toledo, October 31, 1898) (1898, below), taken when Hébert had abandoned her large format camera for a more portable Kodak. A wonderful use of depth of field, movement, vanishing point, light, architecture and the ghostly presence of a boy, forever peering at us through eons of time, lend the image an enigmatic, allegorical mystery … as to the passage of time, the journey of life.

How I wish we could have seen more of these later photographs where Hébert proposed “daring viewpoints – notably from a speeding train – a camera in motion, glances towards the camera, the operator’s shadow cast on the ground, motion blur of people and things (smoke, clouds, and waves), truncated figures, and close-ups.” (Marie Robert)

And then there is the crux of the matter. As the text on the Musée d’Orsay website insightfully observes, “… above all, photography revealed her to herself: through capturing a particularly remarkable geography and era, she effectively invented her own mythology.”

Through love and life, through devotion to husband, through devotion to photography, and through devotion to herself, she revealed her to herself and to the world. What crazy, mad love!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. With photographs like Femmes à la fenêtre, Taormine (Sicile), mai 1893 (Women at the window, Taormina (Sicily), May 1893) (1893, below) it is likely Gabrielle Hébert would have met Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (German, 1856-1931) who lived and worked there between 1878-1931.

Many thankx to the Musée d’Orsay, Paris for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Active between 1888 and 1908, Gabrielle documented daily life at Villa Medici in Rome, where her husband served as director of the French Academy. Her photographs provide an intimate look into the artistic life of the time, portraying artists, models, and domestic scenes. The exhibition features original prints, albums, diaries, glass plate negatives, and her cameras, alongside works by Ernest Hébert and personal items that tell their love story. With over 3.500 prints, Gabrielle Hébert is considered a pioneer of female photography, having sensitively and precisely documented an artistic environment predominantly male.

Veronica Azzari on the Bvlgari Hotel Paris website

When Gabriele von Uckermann and a friend discovered Ernest Hébert’s painting, La Mal’aria [below], at the Munich International Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1869, the two young women sent a telegram to the artist expressing their admiration. A few months later, the painter agreed to receive Gabriele in his Parisian studio, and their marriage in 1880 sealed their whirlwind romance. He was 63, she was 28. Five years later, Ernest Hébert’s reappointment as director of the French Academy in Rome allowed the young woman to have her own studio. Gabrielle Hébert, who had Gallicized her first name, dates her photographic debut to July 8, 1888. From that day forward, she never stopped photographing her husband. She also dedicated herself to visually documenting their stay at the Villa Medici, as well as their travels in Italy, Sicily, and Spain. …

The exhibition’s subtitle, “Mad Love at the Villa Medici,” while certainly catchy, is somewhat misleading, as the section strictly devoted to photographs related to her stay at the French Academy in Rome represents only a third of the exhibition. However, each period of this prolific output is contextualised using a variety of documents: diary entries, correspondence, camera footage, albums, contact sheets, and more.

Christine Coste. “Gabrielle Hébert, un itinéraire photographique singulier,” on the Le Journal des Arts website, 17th December, 2025 [Online] Cited 02/01/2026. Translated from the French by Google Translate. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Ernest Hébert (French, 1817-1908)
The Mal’aria
1848-1849
Oil on canvas
1930 x 1350cm
Musée d’Orsay, dist. RMN / Patrice Schmidt
Bought 1851

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Alexis Axilette (French, 1860-1931)
Ernest et Gabrielle Hébert et leurs chiens sur la terrasse du bosco
(Ernest and Gabrielle Hébert and their dogs on the terrace of the bosco)
Around 1888
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
8.7 x 12.2cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Ernest Hébert aquarelle l’arc du balcon de la Casa Poscia, Viterbe, août 1888
(Ernest Hébert watercolour the arch of the balcony of the Casa Poscia, Viterbo, August 1888)
1888
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
9 x 12cm environ
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Le peintre pensionnaire Alexis Axilette et son modèle Elvira dans le Bosco de la Villa Médicis, Octobre 1888
(Resident painter Alexis Axilette and his model Elvira in the Bosco of the Villa Medici, October 1888)
1888
Négatif au gélatino-bromure d’argent sur plaque de verre (Silver gelatin bromide negative on glass plate)
9 x 12cm
© La Tronche, musée Hébert
Photo: Musée Hébert, Département de l’Isère

The photograph above shows a nude woman posing for the artist Alexis Axilette for his painting Summertime (c. 1891, below)

Alexis Axilette (French, 1860-1931)
Summertime
c. 1891

Only a black and white reproduction is available of this work

At the Salon exhibition of 1891, a picture which attracted a marked amount of attention was a vividly painted midsummer landscape, with the figures of three wood-nymphs, basking in the flood of golden sunshine. It was entitled “Summertime.” The painter was A. Axilette, a Parisian artist whose studio was already well known to collectors. The success of “Summertime” in Europe was enormous. It was successively exhibited at various continental exhibitions, and everywhere repeated the hit it had made in France. It was, in fact, one of those works of which it is said that they “make” their authors, and in the sense that it completely established the painter’s reputation, “Summertime” realised this figure of speech.

Mary S. Van Deusen. “Alexis Axilette,” on the Master Paintings of the World website 2007 [Online] Cited 02/01/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Alexis Axilette (French, 1860-1931)

Alexis Axilette was born in 1860 in Durtal, a small town in Maine-et-Loire. From a modest background – his father was a merchant – his future seemed predetermined, far removed from the world of art. His parents, who dreamed of a career as a notary’s clerk for him, were nonetheless surprised to discover his talent for drawing. After encouraging him to prove his abilities, they supported his choice to become an artist, a vocation he embraced with passion and determination. This ambition led him to become one of the most remarkable painters of his time.

A Promising Start

At the age of 16, Alexis Axilette began working as an apprentice in a photography studio, retouching photographs by hand, a modern activity for the time. At the same time, he attended evening classes at the Angers Municipal School of Fine Arts, where he distinguished himself with his talent and won several prizes. Supported by his teachers, he obtained a scholarship to attend the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1878 and 1880, he learned Neoclassical principles there under the influence of the renowned painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, teachings that would profoundly shape his artistic approach.

The Rise to Recognition

At 24, Alexis Axilette reached a major turning point in his career by winning the prestigious Premier Grand Prix de Rome with his painting Themistocles Taking Refuge with Admetus (1885), a masterfully executed historical scene. This success, achieved at such a young age only by Fragonard, propelled his career, marked by gold medals, honorary distinctions, and the Legion of Honor. From that moment on, he became a central figure in the artistic and literary life of the Third Republic, frequenting high society and financial circles. An accomplished artist, he traveled throughout Europe and forged an international reputation, becoming a sought-after portraitist with prestigious commissions, notably from the Imperial Court of Russia.

In 1898, he received a major state commission: the creation of a monumental triptych for the ceiling of the Social Museum, entitled Humanity, Fatherland, and Muse. This work, both moral and balanced, perfectly embodies the republican ideals of the time.

Historical and Artistic Context

Under the Third Republic, the arts were seen as a privileged means of promoting national cohesion. Axilette’s academic style, rooted in moral and patriotic values, perfectly aligned with this objective. However, the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the emergence of new artistic movements such as Impressionism, Symbolism, and Expressionism. Axilette’s attachment to classicism and a rigorous aesthetic set him apart from the avant-garde movements that favored experimentation and creative freedom. Thus, although he perfectly embodied his era, his art gradually came to be perceived as outdated and obsolete.

A Transition to Pastels

In the 1910s, as artistic tastes evolved, Alexis Axilette turned to the use of pastels. This more subtle and delicate medium allowed him to explore a new sensibility while remaining true to his academic style. His works from this period, primarily portraits and landscapes, testify to his desire to renew his approach while remaining rooted in classical tradition. These pastels reveal an undiminished technical mastery and a willingness to adapt to new artistic trends, although his style seems to have been less appreciated at this time.

Posthumous Oblivion

Like many academic artists, Alexis Axilette suffered from the evolution of tastes in the 20th century. Classical art, once revered, lost ground to the avant-garde, relegating its works to museum storage. Furthermore, his image as a society artist, associated with the establishment of the Third Republic, did not help his legacy. While artists like Gauguin symbolized rebellion and innovation, Axilette remains perceived as a representative of a bygone academicism.

A body of work to be rediscovered

Alexis Axilette died on July 3, 1931, in Durtal, his birthplace. Today, his legacy lives on through his works held in private and public collections: academic drawings, nude sketches, portrait studies, landscapes, and historical paintings. These paintings bear witness to his exceptional talent and his dedication to his art. Although he was a major figure of his time, he remains relatively unknown today. He embodies the fate of many artists: celebrated in their lifetime, but gradually forgotten by history.

Anonymous. “Alexis Axilette,” on the French Wikipedia website, translated by Google Translate

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Le temps est sublime. Je photographie Lily et Farfalette, mon buste, Puech, Charpentier et Gardet, 20 novembre 1888
(The weather is sublime. I photograph Lily and Farfalette, my bust, Puech, Charpentier and Gardet, November 20, 1888)
1888
Aristotype à la gélatine, papier (Gelatin Aristotype, paper)
11 x 8cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Designed in partnership with the Musée Départemental Ernest Hébert in La Tronche (Isère), where it will be hosted in spring 2026, the exhibition will also be presented at the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici in autumn 2026, where the exhibition’s curator Marie Robert spent a year in the context of a Villa Medici/ Musée d’Orsay cross-residency.

The exhibition Who’s Afraid of Women Photographers? (1839-1945) presented at the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie in 2015 was a milestone for recognition of women artists in France. One of the many photographers featured was Gabrielle Hébert (1853, Dresden, Germany – 1934, La Tronche, France). Born Gabrielle von Uckermann, she was an amateur painter before marrying Ernest Hébert in 1880, an academic artist twice appointed Director of the French Academy in Rome. She went on to develop an intensive, extremely prolific photography practice, begun at Villa Medici in 1888 and ending twenty years later in La Tronche (near Grenoble) following the death of the man she had idolised, her elder by almost forty years, and whose place in history she largely ensured by supporting the creation of two monographic museums.

In the late 19th century, between France and Italy, like many artists and writers (including Henri Rivière, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis and Émile Zola) who equipped themselves with a camera to record their and their families’ daily lives, Gabrielle Hébert pursued a private, sentimental photography practice, helped along by the technical and aesthetic revolution brought about by the invention of snapshot photography. At Villa Medici, as the wife of its director, she organised receptions and received elite visitors. She was not long in escaping her assigned duties, however, and acquired a camera. She took a few lessons with a Roman professional and, along with a resident of her own age, set up a darkroom to develop and print her negatives and retouch the results. It was the beginning of an extremely voluminous output of photos, which she consigned to her diaries. Hardly a day passed without her taking a snapshot, interspersing them with remarks that tell us how she set about taking pictures: “Je photo…. Je photographie…”.

Although Gabrielle Hébert shared her taste for society portraits and tableaux vivants with Luigi and Giuseppe Primoli, Princess Mathilde Bonaparte’s nephews and pioneers of snapshot photography in Italy, she explored all photographic genres on her own at Villa Medici, including nudes, reproductions of artworks, landscapes, still lifes and “photographic recreations” … Providing us with the viewpoint of a permanent resident who is dazzled by the palace, the site and its inhabitants (artists in residence, employees, models, dogs and cats) as seen from the inside and in all seasons, her output reveals a completely unknown aspect of life in that artistic phalanstery. Her “diary in images” is the first photo-report on daily life in the institution, a centre for residencies, training and creation by winners of the Grand Prix de Rome (many of whose works are now conserved by the Musée d’Orsay) as well as a laboratory for the new political relationship between France and Italy, which had just been “unified” (1861) and of which Rome became the capital in 1871. It also constitutes a unique testimony on one of the first couples of creators at Villa Medici. Although Gabrielle assisted Ernest with his activities as an artist, posing for him, preparing his canvases, retouching his paintings and even copying them, it was Ernest himself who was the photographer’s real focus. Overturning gender stereotypes, she watched him obsessively and was never tired of capturing him on film. Posing sessions with sitters, progress made in his paintings, moments of conviviality with visitors and interactions with residents, along with walks in the Roman countryside, bathing in the sea and alone in his office: all these aspects of artist, director and husband Ernest Hébert’s life were scrutinised and documented. When she returned permanently to France with him, Gabrielle stopped cultivating her passion for photography, a passion born in Italy and in exile, but nevertheless continued to photograph Hébert until the very end of his life, determined to immortalise him through images. Before that, though, in 1898, she escaped the closed quarters formed by the Renaissance Palace and its eccentric occupants and performed her photographic swansong during a trip to Spain, which she photographed with a resolutely modern eye influenced by the early days of cinema.

This chrono-thematic exhibition, from Gabrielle Hébert’s photographic beginnings (1888) to her last images (1908), will seek to present what she made of photography and what photography made of her. Thanks to her images, which she shared and exchanged with her friends and family, she became recognised as an auteur and gained social status in a milieu where artistic creation was the preserve of men. But above all, photography revealed her to herself: through capturing a particularly remarkable geography and era, she effectively invented her own mythology. By doing so, she was Villa Medici’s first photographic chronicler and made a place for herself in the medium’s history.

Most of the works on exhibition are original prints (in 9 x 12 cm format), along with photograph albums created by Gabrielle Hébert, her diaries, boxes of glass plates and cameras she used. Enlargements created from negatives she never printed will add further life to the presentation. The itinerary will be rounded out by drawings and paintings by Ernest Hébert, as well as sentimental relics (palette, medallion and letters), testimony to a story of love for a man and a country.

Text from the Musée d’Orsay website

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
L’architecte Hector d’Espouy devant son Projet de plafond pour la décoration de la Villa Médicis
(The architect Hector d’Espouy in front of his ceiling design for the decoration of the Villa Medici)
1889
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
8 x 10.5cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Esquisse de La Sirène de Denys Puech dans son atelier (envoi règlementaire de quatrième année)
(Sketch of The Mermaid by Denys Puech in his studio (required submission for fourth year))
1889
Aristotype à la gélatine, papier
11.5 x 5.8cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Le jeune modèle Peppino sur l’un des lions de la loggia, 18 juin 1890
(The young model Peppino on one of the lions of the loggia, June 18, 1890)
1890
Aristotype à la gélatine, papier (Gelatin Aristotype, paper)
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
La duchesse de Mondragone et l’une de ses bellessoeurs posent pour une Annonciation, juin 1890
(The Duchess of Mondragone and one of her sisters-in-law pose for an Annunciation, June 1890)
1890
Négatif au gélatino-bromure d’argent sur plaque de verre (Silver gelatin bromide negative on glass plate)
8.4 x 11.6cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Modèles ciociare sur les marches de la loggia (Ciociare models on the steps of the loggia)
Around 1890
Aristotype à la gélatine, contrecollé sur carton (Gelatin Aristotype, mounted on cardboard)
8.3 x 11.3cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

“Ciociaria” refers to a historic, rustic region southeast of Rome in Italy, and “ciociara” (singular) or “ciociare” (plural/feminine) describes people, especially women, from that area, known for their traditional leather sandals (ciocie), embodying a simple, rural Italian identity, famously portrayed in the film La Ciociara (Two Women). The term evokes a strong connection to the land, traditional life, and the unique culture of this central Italian territory.

Google AI

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Lys des parterres, juin 1890 (Flowerbed lilies, June 1890)
1890
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
10.5 x 12.7cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
La duchesse de Mondragone, des photographies de Gabrielle Hébert sur les genoux
(The Duchess of Mondragone, with photographs of Gabrielle Hébert on her lap)
1890
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
8.4 x 11.3cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Étude de lys dans les jardins par le pensionnaire Ernest Laurent et Ernest Hébert, en compagnie du modèle Amalia Scossa, 7 juin 1890
(Study of lilies in the gardens by boarder Ernest Laurent and Ernest Hébert, in the company of model Amalia Scossa, June 7, 1890)
1890
Aristotype à la gélatine, contrecollé sur carton (Gelatin Aristotype, mounted on cardboard)
8.1 x 11.4cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Adaptation of the texts from the exhibition in large print

Introduction

An amateur painter and wife of the artist Ernest Hébert, director of the French Academy in Rome, Gabrielle Hébert began photography intensively and passionately at the Villa Medici in 1888. She abruptly stopped twenty years later in La Tronche (near Grenoble), upon the death of the man she idolised and who was forty years her senior. She will ensure her legacy through the creation of
two monographic museums.

Like Henri Rivière, Maurice Denis, or Émile Zola, who at the end of the 19th century seized upon a camera to record family life, Gabrielle developed a private and sentimental practice, fostered by the technical and aesthetic revolution of the snapshot. As the entries “I take photos” or “I photograph” in her diary show, not a day went by without her taking pictures. Securing her place as an author through these images in a milieu where artistic creation was reserved for men, she discovered herself.

Through the chronicle of her chosen land and happy days, she creates a work of memory and inscribes herself in History.

A Woman Under the Influence

On July 21, 1888, Gabrielle “went out to buy things necessary for photography.” This marked the beginning of an obsessive production of two thousand photographs, mostly taken at the Villa Medici where, as First Lady of a prestigious cultural institution, she organised receptions and received visiting high society. Gabrielle quickly escaped the constraints of her duties: she acquired a camera, took lessons from Cesare Vasari, a Roman professional, and, together with fellow resident Alexis Axilette, set up a darkroom to develop her negatives, print, and retouch her photographs.

She already had an eye for it thanks to her artistic background and her practice of painting and drawing. But it was with the Franco-Italian counts Giuseppe and Luigi Primoli that Gabrielle explored the potential of the instantaneous, becoming the subject of a creative and existential experience: photography.

An art of joy

Gabrielle chronicles the Villa Medici, at once an architectural masterpiece overlooking the Eternal City, a residence for the winners of the Grand Prix de Rome, and a laboratory for a new relationship between France and Italy, newly unified. She focuses her gaze on its inhabitants: artists and models, foreign visitors on holiday, Italian employees at work, flowers, and animals. She enjoys working alongside the “button-pushers” in her circle, as amateurs equipped with handheld cameras are known.

She also observes professionals capturing perspectives of the palace with their imposing camera. “Magnificent weather. I’m photographing the residents”: Gabrielle often associates the day’s weather with an urgent need to act. Present in the world, joyful in her being, she then presses the shutter. Taking the picture is an epiphany. “I photograph, therefore I exist,” she seems to be saying.

Mein Alles (My Everything)

Gabrielle focuses her attention on her husband, around whom she circles and whose activities she seems to observe when he is painting or showing guests around the premises. The tender and sensitive portrait she paints of him is that of a director, an artist entirely devoted to his work at his workplaces, or sketching en plein air on excursions. She also captures him in his nakedness, as an elderly man bathing in the sea. She is concerned about his state of health; she notes how he slept or the time he got up.

The couple’s asymmetry, commonplace at that time and in that social circle, is also expressed in their writings: while he uses the informal “tu” with her, she uses the formal “vous” and addresses him with the superlative phrase “Mein Alles”: My Everything.

Travels in Italy

During their eleven-year stay in Italy, Ernest and Gabrielle travelled all over the country.

The artist enjoys returning to favorite places painted during her youth. They take with them a boarder or student, Amelia Scossa, Ernest’s beloved model, or a few friends; the dogs are always present. In 1893, they travel to Sicily, to the Duke of Aumale’s estate, and then explore the ancient sites of Selinunte and Agrigento, and the Greek theaters of Syracuse and Taormina. By escaping the confines of the Villa Medici and its eccentric inhabitants, Gabrielle literally leaves her social milieu.

With an attention full of empathy for popular and regional culture, she manages to get groups of strangers, women
and men, to pose in front of her lens, no doubt placed on a tripod, whom she brings together in an amusing jumble around a fountain or on the steps of a building, arousing in return a certain curiosity.

In Spain, a cinematic perspective

In 1896, the couple left Italy with great regret and sorrow, returning to Paris and La Tronche where they continued to lead an intense social life. Two years later, Gabrielle completed her photographic swan song during a final journey, this time to Spain, which took them both from Burgos to Granada via Madrid, El Escorial, Toledo, Granada, and Seville.

Abandoning her large-format camera for a Kodak, she amplified in nearly three hundred photographs what she had already experimented with: daring viewpoints – notably from a speeding train – a camera in motion, glances towards the camera, the operator’s shadow cast on the ground, motion blur of people and things (smoke, clouds, and waves), truncated figures, and close-ups.

The nascent cinematograph had passed by. She no longer poses her subjects; she captures them on the fly. She seizes fleeting gestures, radiant moments, the stroll of passersby, the burst of laughter. This journey is an enchanted interlude that allows the couple to get back on their feet, one last time.

The tomb of an artist

Upon returning from Spain, Gabrielle ceased to cultivate her passion, born under the Italian sky. Her output diminished significantly, ceasing altogether in 1908, with Ernest’s death.

During his final months, she recorded his last visits and outings in the sun, his walks, and setting up his easel outdoors. She portrayed him as a draftsman and painter to the very end, then staged his posthumous portrait, for eternity. Containing the seeds of anticipation of the end, the photographs of moments lived, places visited, and people met, were in reality intended to be viewed by others besides their sole author.

With her thousands of images, Gabrielle composed a tomb, in the poetic sense of the word, erected in memory of her husband and their love. In the museum she created in Isère, in La Tronche, in honour of Ernest, it would take until the beginning of the 21st century for her photographic work to be discovered by a happy accident.

Marie Robert, Chief Curator, Photography and Cinema at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, translated from the French by Google Translate

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Arrière de la statue d’Apollon vainqueur du monstre Python, 13 mai 1891
(Back of the statue of Apollo victorious over the Python monster, May 13, 1891)
1891
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
8.2 x 10.9cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
La façade du palais sous la neige, 16 janvier 1891 (The palace façade under the snow, January 16, 1891)
1891
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
8.2 x 11.2cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Éléonore d’Uckermann, le modèle Natalina, le prince Abamelek-Lazarev et le chien Farfaletta sur la terrasse du bosco, 5 janvier 1891
(Eleanor d’Uckermann, the model Natalina, Prince Abamelek-Lazarev and the dog Farfaletta on the terrace of the bosco, January 5, 1891)
1891
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
8 x 10.8cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Prince Semyon Semyonovich Abamelek-Lazarev (also Abamelik-Lazaryan; Russian: Семён Семёнович Абамелек-Лазарев; 24 November 1857 in Moscow – 2 October 1916 in Kislovodsk) was a Russian millionaire of Armenian ethnicity noted for his contributions to archaeology and geology.

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Amalia Scossa et Ernest Hébert à sa peinture La Vierge au chardonneret sur la terrasse du campanile
(Amalia Scossa and Ernest Hébert at his painting The Virgin with the Goldfinch on the bell tower terrace)
Around 1891
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
9.6 x 12.3cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

The painting in the photograph is probably La Vierge de Chausseur by Ernest Hébert (c. 1891, below)

Ernest Hébert (French, 1817-1908)
La Vierge de Chausseur
c. 1891
Oil on canvas
73cm (28.7 in); width: 47cm (18.5 in)
Public domain

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Sarah Bernhardt dans le studio aménagé de Giuseppe Primoli, Rome, février 1893
(Sarah Bernhardt in Giuseppe Primoli’s furnished studio, Rome, February 1893)
1893
Négatif sur plaque de verre au gélatinobromure d’argent (Gelatin silver bromide glass plate negative)
9 x 12cm
© La Tronche, musée Hébert
Photo: Musée Hébert, Département de l’Isère

Giuseppe Primoli (Italian, 1851-1927)

Count Giuseppe Napoleone Primoli (in French, Joseph Napoléon Primoli; 2 May 1851 in Rome – 13 June 1927 in Rome) was an Italian nobleman, collector and photographer. …

Giuseppe Primoli lived in Paris from 1853 to 1870. He befriended writers and artists both in Italy and France, and was host to Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget, Alexandre Dumas fils, Sarah Bernhardt and others in Palazzo Primoli in Rome. In 1901 he became the sole owner of the palazzo, which he enlarged and modernised between 1904 and 1911.

Primoli was a bibliophile and collector, who assembled a large collection of books and prints. He amassed a collection of books by Stendhal as well as many from the writer’s library.

During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Primoli, an avid photographer, produced over 10,000 photographs.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Anonymous photographer
Giuseppe Primoli in his palace in Rome
c. 1911-1912
Primoli Foundation, Rome

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Femmes à la fenêtre, Taormine (Sicile), mai 1893 (Women at the window, Taormina (Sicily), May 1893)
1893
Aristotype à la gélatine, papier (Gelatin Aristotype, paper)
7.8 x 11.4cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

With photographs like the one above, taken at Taormina, it is likely Gabrielle Hébert would have met Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (German, 1856-1931) who lived and worked there between 1878-1931.

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Paysans avec leurs chèvres, Sicile, mai 1893 (Peasants with their goats, Sicily, May 1893)
1893
Aristotype à la gélatine, papier (Gelatin Aristotype, paper)
7.9 x 10.9cm
La Tronche, Musée Hebert
© Musée Hébert, Département de l’Isère

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Procession sur le port de Brindisi (Pouilles) (Procession in the port of Brindisi (Apulia))
1893
Aristotype à la gélatine, papier (Gelatin Aristotype, paper)
8.0 x 11.4cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Garçon au coin de la place Zocodover, Tolède, 31 octobre 1898
(Boy on the corner of Zocodover Square, Toledo, October 31, 1898)
1898
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
10 x 10cm
La Tronche, musée Hebert
© Musée Hébert, Département de l’Isère

Gabrielle Hébert (French born Germany, 1853-1934)
Ernest Hébert sur son lit de mort, novembre 1908 (Ernest Hébert on his deathbed, November 1908)
1908
Aristotype à la gélatine (Gelatin Aristotype)
9.5 x 9.8cm
© Musée National Ernest Hébert, Paris
Photo: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

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Exhibition: ‘Edward Weston: Becoming Modern’ at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris

Exhibition dates: 15th October, 2015 – 25th January, 2026

Curators: Simon Baker & Laurie Hurwitz, MEP and Polly Fleury & Hope Kingsley, Wilson Centre for Photography

Installation view of the exhibition Edward Weston: Becoming Modern at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, 15th October, 2015 – 25th January, 2026 showing at left, Edward Weston’s ‘M’ on the Black Horsehair Sofa, 1921 (below); and at right, Tina Modotti (Nude in Studio), 1922 (below)

Shadow man

You can always learn from the great artists now matter how many times you have seen their work, especially when the photographs are simply, effectively hung ‘on the line’ in a beautiful space.

Here are photographs by Edward Weston I have never seen before: Pictorialist photographs of suffused and intimate beauty. An exhibition of Weston’s Pictorialist work would be magnificent to behold.

And then Weston’s Peppers (1929, below).

I don’t know why I have never seen this photograph before, why his Pepper (1930, below) is more famous, for this is a monstrous image of dark, writhing, semi-abstract figurative forms, just as valid an artistic statement (in a completely different way) than the more famous image.

Can you imagine holding a vintage print of this photograph in your hands!

Gloria virtutem tanquam umbra sequitur

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Only rhythm, form and perfect detail to consider – first conceptions coming straight through unadulterated.”

“What I seek now is simplicity – the form reduced to its essence.”

Edward Weston. Daybooks II: California (1930-1945). Aperture, 1961

“The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself.”

“To see the Thing Itself is essential: the Quintessence revealed direct without the fog of impressionism.”

Edward Weston. The Daybooks of Edward Weston, from Edward Weston: The Flame of Recognition. Aperture, 1965

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
‘M’ on the Black Horsehair Sofa
1921
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Gregg Wilson

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Tina Modotti (Nude in Studio)
1922
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Gregg Wilson

Installation view of the exhibition Edward Weston: Becoming Modern at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, 15th October, 2015 – 25th January, 2026 showing at left, Edward Weston’s Shell 1927 (below); and right, Santa Monica (Nude in Doorway) 1936 (below)

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Shell
1927
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Gregg Wilson

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) 'Santa Monica (Nude in Doorway)' 1936

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Charis, Santa Monica (Nude in Doorway)
1936
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Installation views of the exhibition Edward Weston: Becoming Modern at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, 15th October, 2015 – 25th January, 2026

The exhibition

The MEP presents Edward Weston: Becoming Modern, the most significant exhibition dedicated to Edward Weston in Paris in nearly thirty years. A pioneering figure of photographic modernism, Weston helped forge a new visual language – marked by clarity, formal rigour, and a profound engagement with the essential qualities of the photographic medium.

Originating from an idea by Michael Wilson – founder of the Wilson Centre
for Photography in London and one of the world’s foremost collectors –
Becoming Modern brings together a rare selection of vintage prints from his
collection, many of which have never been exhibited in France. These works
offer an exceptional insight into Weston’s evolving practice and the emergence
of a distinctly photographic modernism.

Spanning more than three decades, from 1908 to 1945, the exhibition traces
Weston’s artistic trajectory. His early pictorialist photographs, created in
California during the 1910s and early 1920s, draw upon 19th-century artistic
traditions, employing soft focus, carefully staged settings, and symbolic imagery. Over time, his vision transformed: his images became sharper, compositions more austere, with an increasing emphasis on form, surface, and structure. By the 1920s, many of his photographs approached geometric abstraction – though Weston was never confined to a single style. This transformation unfolded gradually, as motifs intertwined and techniques evolved in a subtle, ongoing dialogue, revealing an artist continuously refining and deepening his vision.

Highlights include works from Weston’s time in Mexico, where, in close
collaboration with Tina Modotti – an artist, political activist, and his lover –
he created portraits and nudes imbued with a newfound freedom and
radicalism These are complemented by evocative landscapes of the dramatic
California coastline near Point Lobos and Carmel. At the heart of the
exhibition are his most iconic series: sensuous close-up studies of natural
forms – peppers, shells, fruits, and vegetables – captured with an almost
obsessive intensity; dune and rock landscapes from Point Lobos and Death
Valley; and luminous nudes of his muse, Charis Wilson. Throughout, Weston
reveals the universal beauty of everyday subjects, transforming them into
pure, sculptural forms. Recurring themes – portraiture, the nude, still life,
and nature – are placed in dialogue, uncovering deeper connections across
his oeuvre. His work displays remarkable strength and variety, with many natural forms taking on subtle anthropomorphic qualities.

Becoming Modern invites audiences to rediscover a bold innovator whose
visionary approach helped shape the course of photographic history.
The exhibition also includes a selection of rare works by leading Pictorialist
photographers, offering a broader context for Weston’s early influences and
the artistic milieu from which his modernism emerged.

Edward Weston biography

Widely regarded as one of the masters of 20th-century photography, Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) reshaped the medium through a vision rooted in clarity, form, and a profound sensitivity to the physical world. Over a career spanning more than forty years, he forged a style that was both radically modern and deeply grounded in the landscapes and materials of the American West.

Born in Highland Park, Illinois, Weston spent his early years in the Chicago
area, where his fascination with photography first took hold. By 1903,
as a teenager, he was already exhibiting his early works. At sixteen, he
received his first camera – a gift from his father that marked the beginning
of a lifelong creative journey. He studied at the Illinois College of Photography
from 1908 to 1911 before relocating to California, where, at age 25, he opened a portrait studio in Tropico, operating from 1911 to 1922. In his early career, Weston worked within the Pictorialist tradition – a popular style of the early 20th century characterised by soft focus and romantic, painterly effects. His portraits from this period brought him recognition from the art community. Yet by the early 1920s, he began to move away from this approach, embracing a sharper, more precise, and abstract visual language that emphasised form and detail.

A turning point in Weston’s artistic journey occurred in 1922 on a trip to New York, where he met influential modernist photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Charles Sheeler. They recognised the originality of his work and encouraged him to fully embrace this new direction, which soon included close studies of fruits, vegetables, shells, and stones, rendered with astonishing clarity and sculptural intensity. Through close observation and meticulous composition, he revealed the inherent beauty of form, transforming the ordinary into the iconic.

In the mid-1920s, Weston travelled to Mexico with the photographer and political activist Tina Modotti, with whom he shared a studio and a deep creative partnership. Immersed in the vibrant cultural life of Mexico City, he engaged with a dynamic community of artists and thinkers whose ideas further catalysed his break from tradition.

Returning to California in 1928, Weston found new inspiration in the rugged coastal terrain of Point Lobos. The region’s intricate rock formations, windswept trees, and tide pools became a central focus of his work, offering endless opportunities for visual exploration and formal innovation. In 1932, Weston co-founded Group f/64 – a collective of West Coast photographers dedicated to “straight” photography, emphasising sharp focus, rich tonality, and the use of large-format cameras. The group championed an unmanipulated approach to the medium. Weston’s contributions during this period, especially his landscapes, remain among the most enduring images in American photography.

Text from MEP

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Chicago River Harbor
1908
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Portrait of Enrique (Enrica, Wearing a Black Cross, Looking Sideways)
1916-1919
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Daughter of John Cotton No. II
1920
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre
for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Tina Reciting (Tina Modotti)
1924
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Gregg Wilson

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Heaped Black Ollas
1926
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Excusado (Toilet)
1926
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Exhibition overview

Becoming Modern traces Edward Weston’s evolution from the soft pictorialism
of his early years to the clarity and precision that came to define modern
photography. Spanning nearly three decades, the exhibition presents more
than 100 rare vintage prints from the Wilson Centre for Photography. It invites
viewers to rediscover one of photography’s most visionary pioneers through
an extraordinary body of work.

The exhibition opens with two emblematic photographs that frame its central
theme, reflecting a curatorial concept developed by Michael Wilson to highlight
Weston’s extraordinary range and experimentation. On one side hangs
M on the Black Horsehair Sofa (1921, above), a quintessential example of the
Pictorialist style: a languid pose, softly diffused light, and a painterly atmosphere enriched by symbolic elements – a floral bouquet, a circular mirror. Opposite it, Tina Modotti (Nude in Studio) (1922, above) marks a striking departure. The figure sits upright, smoking, in a bare studio – captured with crisp focus and a stark, modern sensibility. Though created just a year apart, these works embody the transformative arc at the heart of Weston’s career: a restless search for new ways of seeing. From these beginnings, Weston’s exploratory approach soon dissolved strict categories, embracing a practice defined by an ongoing dialogue between subjects and forms.

From here, the exhibition situates Weston’s early work within the broader
context of the Pictorialist movement. His prints are shown alongside key images by photographers who shaped or anticipated his early style – Edward Steichen, George Seeley, Anne Brigman, Dorothea Lange, Margrethe Mather, and Alfred Stieglitz. A tireless advocate for photography as a fine art, Stieglitz helped define the medium’s possibilities through his publications Camera Work and 291, and through his influential New York gallery of the same name. Weston’s own early prints – including a striking self-portrait – are exhibited alongside these historic works. These are placed in conversation with later photographs that capture Weston and his creative circle in 1920s California, evoking a distinct artistic atmosphere. Rooted in the landscape and rhythms of the West Coast, Weston’s early vision subtly diverged from that of his East Coast contemporaries.

The exhibition then turns to the pivotal decade of the 1920s, a period of
remarkable transformation and experimentation in Weston’s practice. Rather
than unfolding in a linear progression, this section reveals how Weston moved
fluidly between subjects and styles – returning repeatedly to certain motifs
while continually refining his formal vocabulary.

This section opens with works from Weston’s extended stays in Mexico
from 1923 to 1926 with photographer and political activist Tina Modotti – his
muse, lover, and collaborator – where he encountered a vibrant avant-garde
community. Immersed in the artistic and political ferment of 1920s Mexico,
Weston developed a bold new visual language focused on form, contrast, and
a sense of immediate presence. A striking portrait of Modotti, presented in both
gelatin silver and palladium prints, showcases Weston’s ongoing technical
experimentation alongside his deepening sensitivity to tonal nuance. Modotti
encouraged Weston toward an even more radical vision, challenging him to
see the world anew through his camera.

His Mexican experience deepened Weston’s experimental impulse, introducing
sharper contrasts and new formal rigor that reverberated through his portraits
and nudes. His obsession with natural forms intensified. He photographed
them repeatedly, seeking the perfect composition and meticulously refining
his prints to reveal the interplay of light, shadow, and volume.

These subjects interact and reflect one another through Weston’s lens.
The sinuous curves of a shell echo the lines of a nude; the gleaming porcelain
of Excusado (Toilet) (1926) takes on the quiet sensuality of the human body.
Shell (1927, above), one of Weston’s most iconic images, exemplifies his singular ability to elevate everyday objects into studies of luminous purity, rendering form, texture, and light with a precision so distilled that they verge on abstraction – not simply photographs of things, but meditations on form itself. During this period, his treatment of the nude also evolved dramatically: the body becomes fragmented and abstracted, its anatomy transformed into sculptural rhythm. This exploration reaches its pinnacle in Charis, Santa Monica (Nude in Doorway) (1936, above), one of Weston’s most celebrated images.

At the heart of the exhibition are many of Weston’s most exceptional works
from the late 1920s and 1930s, in which he famously transformed the ordinary
into something sensuous and unexpected. In his iconic studies of vegetables –
particularly peppers – their curves and folds evoke the flesh and contours
of the human torso, recalling both modernist sculpture and the body. Using
the camera to express, in his words, “the very substance and the quintessence
of the thing itself,” Weston also photographed in close-up what he saw around
him: an egg-slicer, the plank from a barley sifter, a gnarled tree.

His portraits from this period grew sharper in focus and more daring
in composition, echoing the dynamic perspectives emerging in European
Modernist photography. By the late 1920s, after returning to California,
his work had begun to appear in major exhibitions linked to the New Objectivity
movement, which championed photographic clarity and rejected painterly
effects. This evolution is also evident in his treatment of the nude: the body
is fragmented and abstracted, its forms studied as sculptural elements.

Weston’s practice moved fluidly between subjects, embracing both the human
body and the natural world, constantly refining his vision through intense study and formal innovation. Close-up studies of nature – sand patterns, rocks,
and wood – verge on abstraction, including Rock Erosion and Sandstone
Erosion (Point Lobos) – photographs made along the dramatic California
coastline that Weston returned to repeatedly. Jagged rock formations, knotted
seaweed, wind-twisted cypress trees, and bleached driftwood became recurring
motifs, offering endless opportunities for formal exploration. These works also
include a group of powerful portraits, from images of his future wife, Charis Wilson, and her brother Leon, to Weston’s son Brett and daughter-in-law Elinore Stone.

Text from MEP

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Peppers
1929
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents /
Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Pepper
1930
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Gregg Wilson

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Eggs and Slicer
1930
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Shell and Rock Arrangement
1931
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Nude (Dorris)
1933
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents /
Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025. Courtesy Wilson Centre
for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Nude on Sand, Oceano
1936
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) 'Clouds, Santa Monica' 1936

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Santa Monica
1936
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Tomato Field, Big Sur
1937
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Sandstone Erosion, Point Lobos
1942
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Exposition of Dynamic Symmetry
1943
Gelatin silver print
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Edward Weston, Adagp, Paris, 2025
Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography

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Exhibition: ‘Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum’ at David Zwirner, London

Exhibition dates: 6th November, 2025 – 17th January, 2026

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) 'Transvestite with her birthday cake, N.Y.C. 1969' 1969 from the exhibition 'Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum' at David Zwirner, London, Nov 2025 - Jan 2026

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Transvestite with her birthday cake, N.Y.C. 1969
1969
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Without judgement

In my humble opinion Diane Arbus is the best portrait photographer of the 20th century.

As can be seen in the quotation from a 1939 high-school essay on Plato when Arbus was just 19 years old (below), latent inside her was an appreciation of difference, uniqueness, and the importance of life – all awaiting an out, an emanation of her spirit later manifested in her photographs through the picturing of her subjects.

Arbus found her mature voice as an artist, her métier if you like, when in 1962 she switched from a 35mm camera to a 2 1/4 inch twin-lens reflex (TLR) Rolleiflex (later a Mamiyaflex), a square format which became her iconic signature.

In the photograph Nancy Bellamy’s bedroom, N.Y.C. 1961 (1961, below) we therefore have evidence of the early results of the use of this new camera. In this photograph I believe you can feel how Arbus is still getting used to his new way of seeing the world, for you have to approach your visualisation of the world in a completely different way when constructing the image plane in a square format. Here she is still unsure as to where to place the camera. The light is fantastic coming in through the window and flooding the room but the out of focus left wall is weak and simply does not work with the image.

Fast forward to 1963-1965 and we see Arbus in complete control of her physical and emotional environment. In photographs from this period, whether medium distance portraits showing subjects in situ or tightly cropped portraits with minimal backgrounds, we see her undoubted mastery of natural light, flash, construction and tensioning of the image plane but, above all, in control of the feeling that emanates from the photographs that flows to the viewer.

Whether direct / acceptance / this is who I am (Interior decorator at the nudist camp in his trailer, New Jersey, 1963, 1963 below) to contained / introspective (Lucas Samaras, N.Y.C. 1966, 1966 below) – but never the dreaded “dead pan” – and on to the inscrutable / open / closed looks on each of the three faces in the photograph Triplets in their Bedroom, N.J., 1963 (1963, below), Arbus is the master at conjuring, no what is the word I’m looking for … Arbus is the master at materialising the energy of a person or place before our very eyes.

As the press release so eloquently states, “Through her singular combination of intelligence, charisma, intuition, and courage, Diane Arbus was frequently invited into homes and other private realms seldom seen by strangers. Though made in intimate settings, her photographs evidence no sense of intrusion or trespass. Instead, they reveal an unspoken exchange between photographer and subject, a moment of recognition in which confidences emerge freely and without judgment.”

An unspoken exchange between photographer and subject. A moment of revelation, or revelatio, where the curtain is pulled back to reveal our innermost secrets. Visualised by Arbus without judgement.

As the years progress towards 1968-1970 Arbus becomes bolder still. In photographs such as A naked man being a woman, N.Y.C., 1968 (1968, below), Girl sitting on her bed with her shirt off, N.Y.C., 1968 (1968, below) and Mexican Dwarf in his hotel room, N.YC., 1970 (1970, below) we see and feel such an intimate bond between the photographer and the subject – all crap cut out, all extraneous noise gone, just the baring of the soul of the sitter looking directly into the camera. As Minor White used to say, a communication / communion between the photographer and the subject, back through the lens of the camera and onto the film, forming a Zenian circle of energy, hoping for a revelation of spirit in the negative and subsequent print – whether that be from a rock, a landscape or a portrait.

And in two photographs from the same sitting, we can begin to understand how Arbus achieved her aim. In the photograph Transvestite at the birthday party, N.Y.C. 1969 (1969, below) we have the subject in situ, in context, laughing, happy, enjoying her birthday party surrounded by her things. Then things change. In Transvestite with her birthday cake, N.Y.C. 1969 (1969, below) Arbus closes in on this wonderful human being on her bed with her birthday cake. Isolating her from the background through the use of flash, there she is, fag in hand, staring directly into the camera in all her strength and vulnerability. Arbus evinces what it is to be this human being, she has empathy for the subject in these intimate settings.

I believe that Arbus’ empathy for her subjects was greatly enhanced by the waist level engagement with her sitters when using her medium format camera. Instead of bringing the camera up to the eye, Arbus looks down into the viewfinder to locate and ground the energy of her subjects, and the camera is nestled at solar plexus / belly button, with all the connection to mother, blood, energy and water (Amniotic Fluid) from which we all come. When singing and in yoga practice, breathing comes from the stomach and the energy flows in an out of the navel, the Manipura (solar plexus) in yoga, linked to personal power, emotional balance, and metabolism, acting as a hub for energy distribution.1 Having used an old Mamiya twin-lens C220 medium format camera myself I can totally appreciate the unique perspective and energy such a camera position brings to picturing the world.

“These archetypal images have become deeply embedded in the collective conscience where conscience is pre-eminently the organ of sentiments and representations. The snap, snap, snap of the shutter evinces the flaws of human nature, reveals the presence of a quality or feeling to which we can all relate. As Arbus states, the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture. And more complicated. That is why these photographs always capture our attention – because we become, we inhabit, we are the subject.”2

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ The (navel) is seen as a powerful energy centre in many traditions (Yoga, Ayurveda, TCM) and science, representing our origin, core strength, digestion (Agni/digestive fire), self-esteem, and life force (prana).

2/ Marcus Bunyan commenting on the exhibition Diane Arbus at Jeu de Paume, Paris, October 2011 – February 2012

Many thankx to David Zwirner for allowing me to publish the 5 images and installation photographs in the posting. All other photographs are used under fair use conditions for the purposes of eduction and research. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“For me the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture. And more complicated.”

Diane Arbus

“There are and have been and will be an infinite number of things on earth: individuals all different, all wanting different things, all knowing different things, all loving different things, all looking different. Everything that has been on earth has been different from any other thing. That is what I love: the differentness, the uniqueness of all things and the importance of life…. I see something that seems wonderful; I see the divineness in ordinary things.”

Diane Arbus in a high-school essay on Plato, 1939

Dennis McGuire (American) 'Untitled [Diane Arbus using her medium format Mamiya camera]' Nd

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Installation view of the exhibition Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum at David Zwirner, London showing at left, Arbus’ Girl sitting on her bed with her shirt off, N.Y.C., 1968; at centre, Interior decorator at the nudist camp in his trailer, New Jersey 1963; at second right, Mrs. T. Charlton Henry in a negligee, Philadelphia, Pa. 1965; and at right, Triplets in their Bedroom, N.J., 1963

Installation view of the exhibition Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum at David Zwirner, London showing at second left, Arbus’ Two friends at home, N.Y.C., 1965; at second right, Brenda Diana Duff Frazier, 1938 Debutante of the Year, at home, Boston, Mass. 1966; and at right, Transvestite at her birthday party, N.Y.C., 1968

Installation view of the exhibition Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum at David Zwirner, London showing Arbus’ photograph A naked man being a woman, N.Y.C. 1968

Installation view of the exhibition Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum at David Zwirner, London showing in the centre distance, Arbus’ Mexican dwarf in his hotel room, N.Y.C. 1970; at second right, Lucas Samaras, N.Y.C. 1966; and at right, Bishop on her bed, Santa Barbara, Cal., 1964

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) 'Female impersonator on bed, N.Y.C. 1961' 1961 from the exhibition 'Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum' at David Zwirner, London, Nov 2025 - Jan 2026

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Female impersonator on bed, N.Y.C. 1961
1961
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
The Backwards Man in his hotel room, N.Y.C. 1961
1961
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) 'Lucas Samaras, N.Y.C. 1966' 1966

Lucas Samaras (Greek: Λουκάς Σαμαράς; September 14, 1936 – March 7, 2024) was a Greek-born American photographer, sculptor, and painter. …

His “Auto-Interviews” were a series of text works that were “self-investigatory” interviews. The primary subject of his photographic work is his own self-image, generally distorted and mutilated. He worked with multi-media collages, and by manipulating the wet dyes in Polaroid photographic film to create what he calls “Photo-Transformations”.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Brenda Diana Duff Frazier, 1938 Debutante of the Year, at home, Boston, Mass. 1966
1966
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

~ Sanctum Sanctorum: a sacred room or inner chamber; a place of inviolable privacy

Diane Arbus: Sanctum Sanctorum, an exhibition of forty-five photographs made in private places across New York, New Jersey, California, and London between 1961 and 1971, is on view at David Zwirner, London, from 6 November to 17 January 2025, and travels to Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco in spring 2026. The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive monograph reproducing all works in the exhibition, jointly published by both galleries.

Through her singular combination of intelligence, charisma, intuition, and courage, Diane Arbus was frequently invited into homes and other private realms seldom seen by strangers. Though made in intimate settings, her photographs evidence no sense of intrusion or trespass. Instead, they reveal an unspoken exchange between photographer and subject, a moment of recognition in which confidences emerge freely and without judgment.

Arbus’s desire to know people embraced a vast spectrum of humanity. Her subjects in Sanctum Sanctorum include debutantes, nudists, celebrities, aspiring celebrities, socialites, transvestites, babies, widows, circus performers, lovers, female impersonators, and a blind couple in their bedroom.

The exhibition brings together little-known works, such as Girl sitting in bed with her boyfriend, N.Y.C. 1966; Ozzie and Harriet Nelson on their bed, Los Angeles 1970; and Interior decorator at the nudist camp in his trailer, New Jersey 1963, alongside celebrated images like Mexican dwarf in his hotel room, N.Y.C. 1970 and A naked man being a woman, N.Y.C. 1968.

While many of Arbus’s photographs have become part of the public’s collective consciousness since her landmark retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1972, seen in this context, viewers may discover aspects of even familiar works that have previously gone unnoticed.

Sanctum Sanctorum follows two recent major exhibitions of the artist’s work: Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited at David Zwirner New York (2022) and Los Angeles (2025), and Diane Arbus: Constellation at LUMA, Arles (2023–2024) and the Park Avenue Armory, New York (2025).

Exhibition Catalogue

This new title ‘Sanctum Sanctorum’ illuminates Diane Arbus’s singular ability to enter private worlds.

Press release from the David Zwirner

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Nancy Bellamy’s bedroom, N.Y.C. 1961
1961
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

One of Arbus’s lesser known pictures, this photograph is of the bedroom of Nancy Bellamy, the wife of Richard Bellamy, a leading gallerist in 1960s New York who influentially championed Pop Art and Minimalism. Before she began her personal projects, Arbus worked in fashion photography with her husband, Allan, and she first met Nancy when she modelled for the Arbuses on a fashion shoot. As well as modelling, Bellamy also worked as a dancer, painter and costume designer, and had a keen interest in spiritualism. Like ‘Xmas Tree in a Living Room in Levittown 1963’, Arbus uses an empty room to create a portrait of the person – the dressmaker’s dummy, the canvas on the wall, the photographs by the mirror and the simple, yet elegant furnishings together create an impression of Arbus’s friend’s personality.

Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Interior decorator at the nudist camp in his trailer, New Jersey, 1963
1963
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Triplets in their Bedroom, N.J., 1963
1963
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) 'Bishop on her bed, Santa Barbara, Cal., 1964' 1964, printed later

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Bishop on her bed, Santa Barbara, Cal., 1964
1964
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

The bishop in Diane Arbus’s photograph “Bishop on her bed, Santa Barbara, Cal.” (1964, above) was Bishop Ethel Predonzan, a unique figure who believed she was in Santa Barbara to await the Second Coming of Christ and wore elaborate robes, described by Arbus as a “small lady in damask robes with hair of phosphorescent pink”.

Predonzan was a key subject in Arbus’s exploration of individuals on the fringes, showcasing the artist’s ability to find deep personal connection and reveal inner strangeness.

Google AI

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Charlton Henry in a negligee, Philadelphia, Pa. 1965
1965
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

Mrs T. Charlton Henry was a Philadelphia socialite, a philanthropist, and a fashion icon – often top of the ‘best-dressed’ lists. She was the kind of wealthy upper-class woman that Arbus’s father would have hoped to see in his Fifth Avenue department store buying the latest furs.

Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website

“Mrs. Henry, born Julia Rush Biddle of Philadelphia’s Main Line, weighs approximately 88 pounds. She will be 82 years old this month. She has been on the best-dressed list so often that she is now a member of fashion’s Hall of Fame. She still lives in Philadelphia, but commutes to New York for luncheon, shopping, theater. She sits, with the posture of another era, on a bound-to-be-seen banquette at La Caravelle restaurant and delves into a curry (“I’ll have jellied soup for dinner tonight”). Her silver and gold “57 varieties” hair is meticulously coifed; the fingernails that blow delicate little kisses of greeting to friends are tinted a deep pink. Her brown and white gingham Mainbocher is perked up with her favorite day jewels. There are marble-size pearls around the neck and one wrist, and massive yellow sapphires at the other wrist, the ears, and flashing away on a ring and a brooch.”

Enid Nemy. “Mrs. T. Charlton Henry: A Grande Dame and a Jogger,” on The New York Times website July 29, 1968 [Online] Cited 05/01/2026

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Two friends at home, N.Y.C., 1965
1965
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A naked man being a woman, N.Y.C., 1968
1968
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Girl sitting on her bed with her shirt off, N.Y.C., 1968
1968
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Transvestite at the birthday party, N.Y.C. 1969
1969
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Mexican Dwarf in his hotel room, N.YC., 1970
1970
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research.

David Zwirner
24 Grafton Street
London W1S 4EZ

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 6pm

David Zwirner website

The best of Art Blart in 2025

December 2025

Around the world, 2025 hasn’t been a great year for photography exhibitions. As a friend of mine said on Facebook it has been a dreary year and I would tend to agree with him.

Curatorially, everything was pretty cut and dried, relying on the usual one artist show or group exhibition on a theme with nobody prepared to take a risk on anything creative, inventive even.

I found little to inspire me in terms of idiosyncratic but illuminating pairings of photographers or unusual insights into the conditions and conceptualisation of photographic production and presentation – other than a few of the exhibitions noted below: costume, gesture and expression – yes! the development of colour photography pre the ubiquitous American artists – yes! and the life in self-portraits of a photobooth operator in Melbourne, part magician, part artist – YES!

Out of the 60 postings on Art Blart in 2025 I’ve picked what I think are the 11 best exhibitions, plus a couple of honourable mentions.

I hope you enjoy the selection and a Happy New Year to you all!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Marcus Bunyan. “Past present,” on the exhibition Still Performing: Costume, Gesture, and Expression in 19th Century European Photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, August 2024 – January 2025

Victor Plumier (Belgian, 1820-1878)
Lady in Costume
About 1850
Daguerreotype, half plate
5 1/2 × 4 1/2 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation

“The emotions and the sentiments, the gestures and the expressions.
The actor and the stage, the photographer and the sitter.
The staged photograph and the tableaux vivant.
The Self and the Other.” ~ MB

2/ A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, October 2024 – January 2025

Andrew Joseph Russell (American, 1829-1902)
Slave Pen, Alexandria, Virginia
1863
Albumen silver print
High Museum of Art
Purchased with funds Lucinda Weill Bunnen Fund and the Donald and Marilyn Keogh Family

“Photographs are containers of, fragments of, memories of, histories of, events – remembrances of events – brought from past into present, informing the future, showing only snippets of the stories of both past and present lives. Parallel to the usual thought that photographs are about death, they are also memory containers for (still) living people.” ~ MB

3/ Marcus Bunyan. “Out in the midday sun,” on the exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF), September 2024 – February 2025

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Mayor of Todmorden’s inaugural banquet, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England, 1977
1977
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

“I am always fascinated with the early work of an artist. In essence, the photographs tell you what are the primary concerns for the artist and these themes usually remain with them for the rest of their career. These early black and white photographs provide a window into that ongoing investigation, that golden path. They are more subtle in their modulation of British life than in the later colour work – it’s as though the artist had to change gears with the use of colour developing a more ironic way of seeing British life through a different spatial relationship to his subjects – but in these photographs there is still that deprecating humour that is often missing in the work of his contemporaries…” ~ MB

4/ Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World at Foam, Amsterdam, January – April, 2025

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Pull' c. 1960

“There are the things that are out in the open, and there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden.” ~ Saul Leiter

5/ True Colors: Color in Photography from 1849 to 1955 at Albertina Modern, Vienna, January – April, 2025

Léon Vidal (French, 1833-1906)
Oriental Onyx Sardonyx Cup (16th century)
1876
Photomechanical proof (photochromy using the Léon Vidal process) mounted on cardboard
H. 20.8 ; L. 26.2 cm.
Don Fondation Kodak-Pathé, 1983

“What a wonderful exhibition. It’s so exciting to see the history and development of colour photography pre the ubiquitous, American artists William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, much as I like both artists.” ~ MB

6/ The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, March – May 2025

Julie Millowick (Australian, b. 1948)
Mother and child from 46 Blanche Street, St Kilda
1977
Gelatin silver print
15.9 x 23.7cm
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by Julie Millowick 2024

“Prahran College itself played a critical role in the legitimisation of photography as an art form within Australia. It spearheaded the integration of art photography into tertiary education curricula, fostering an environment where young artists … could experiment formally and conceptually.”

James McArdle. “Epoch,” on the On This Date in Photography website, 25th April, 2025 [Online] Cited 28/04/2025

7/ Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, March – June 2025

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943) 'Opticians, London, 1975' 1975

“The wit, the humour (pigeons sitting outside the racing pigeon shop), the stiff upper lip, the carry on regardless, the working class pantomime of life and death – the public commission flats where people formed caring communities that were destroyed through redevelopment – the integrity of an existence that has largely come and gone pictured with warmth and empathy.” ~ MB

8/ Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August 2025

Installation view of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“Through the strip self-portraits Adler took while servicing and then testing the photobooths that he operated in Melbourne, Australia we become immersed in an archive of his world, the exhibition becoming a joyous ode to a man who devoted his life to photography (not in the traditional sense): in turns humorous and historical, a travelogue, his travelogue, through time and space.’ ~ MB

9/ Street Photography. Lee Friedlander, Joseph Rodríguez, Garry Winogrand at Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, May – October 2025

Joseph Rodriguez (American, b. 1952) '220 West Houston Street, NY' 1984

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
220 West Houston Street, New York
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
25.3 x 37.2cm
© Joseph Rodríguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

“Rodríguez’s moody, high contrast photographs of humanity and street scenes pictured from behind the wheel of his taxi in New York proffer an intuitive, empathetic and subjective view of the city and its people at a time of great economic and social upheaval…

Uncertain times, uncertain angles and perspectives, uncertain light give rise to a powerful body of work made certain by the talent of an impressive photographer. Glorious work.” ~ MB

10/ Marcus Bunyan. “Myths of the American West,” on the exhibition Richard Avedon ‘In the American West’ 1979-1984 at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, April – October 2025

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004)
Sandra Bennett, twelve year old, Rocky Ford, Colorado, August 23, 1980
1980
Gelatin silver print
© The Richard Avedon Foundation

“Avedon, while undercutting the myth of the American West through his storytelling, doesn’t seek to document, exploit or misrepresent his subjects, but to subjectively present them as on a theatrical set devoid of scenery – where their very appearance becomes scene / seen. As he himself said, “My concern is… the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own.”” ~ MB

11/ Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, September 2025 – February 2026

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Wassertürme, USA (Water towers, USA)
1974-1983
Gelatin silver prints
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln, 2025

“The Bechers’ typologies and grids, their topographic state, their same same photographs and perspectives of industrial sculptures and landscapes are anything but objective. Their pictorial grammar, underlaid by a conceptual approach to subject matter, continuously reflected in the systematics of capture and display (the juxtaposition of works together), is constantly undermined by the ghost in the machine – those viral codes of mutation and difference which cannot be controlled.” ~ MB

Honourable mentions

Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan, April – July, 2025

Heinrich Riebesehl (German, 1938-2010)
Menschen Im Fahrstuhl, 20.11.1969 [People in the Elevator, 20.11.1969]
1969
Gelatin silver print, printed 2007
Kicken Berlin
© Heinrich Riebesehl, by SIAE 2025

Objective / subjective
Pattern / randomness
Isolation / extinction
Morphology / mutation
Specific / anonymous
Repetition / difference
Same / other
Structure / creativity
Orientation / disorientation
Universal / individual
Reality / imagination
Documentation / disruption
Omnipresent / unique
Exact / imprecise
Composed / emotional
Staged / snapshot
Concept / feeling
Formal / intuitive
Ritual / subversion
Collaboration / resistance

Et cetera, et cetera…

Inherent in one is the other.

Every photo within a Becher grid contains its own difference. ~ MB

Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin, April – September, 2025

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Welcome Home
1978-1984
From the series Family Pictures and Stories 1978-1984
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

“Weems blends the poetic and conceptual in photographs and bodies of work which investigate history, identity, racism, executive and patriarchal power from the perspectives of female / Black American.

What a fabulous artist, a guide into circumstances seldom seen, now revealed.” ~ MB