“This is where I think that Siskind was less than happy with the results of his documentary photographs – that they weren’t giving him what he wanted out of his art: that interface of the image and imagination.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
July 2026
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Boys in Empty Tenement c. 1935 Gelatin silver print
Image and imagination
I always find it fascinating to view the first few years of an artist’s journey, the golden path they take, for it more than likely informs all that is to come.
In the greatest abstract expressionist photographer the world has known, Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991), his starting point was as a straight documentary photographer, a member of the New York Photo League, a “left-leaning documentary collective, which prioritised using photography to advocate for social change.”
Using a large format camera and tripod Siskind, for his photo project Harlem Document, captured “the vibrancy, harsh realities, and daily life of the Black community in Harlem” – images which had their roots in American social documentary photography of the period and photographers such as Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks and the photographers of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) government program (1935-1944) which documented the struggles of rural Americans during the Great Depression.
As I have written in a 2023 text titled “Transcending reality”, “To my mind American photographers of the 1930s took photographs not only to document but also to honor what was greater and more interesting than they were. Not as a melding of reality-dream … but as an exploration of what is possible through the interface of the image and imagination, the interface as Ansel Adams put it “between the reality of the world and the reality of yourself”.”
This is where I think that Siskind was less than happy with the results of his documentary photographs – that they weren’t giving him what he wanted out of his art: that interface of the image and imagination.
“In working from the documentary approach, I had always tried to find what kind of meaning you could get in a picture of that kind, and was beginning to feel that I was not getting it. I felt I wasn’t getting anything really personal, really powerful and special…. My documentary pictures were very quiet and very formal.”1
Moving into the 1940s Siskind began experimenting with more abstract compositions (with their link to Abstract Expressionist painting). Evidence of this reorientation in his image making can already be seen in some of the documentary photographs in this posting. For example, the photographs Facades (1938, below) and Harlem (1938, below) both propose the flattening of the photographic surface with an interest in the geometry and abstraction of form – circle, oblong, square, diagonal, curve, line – within the pictorial plane, but with an attendant emphasis on light, texture and tone.
“Though he did not create the lines, shapes, rhythms and patterns in his images, he nonetheless expressed the lyricism of their relationships by harmoniously arriving at the perfect composition. And though his abstract photographs possessed undeniable content, he subverted that content by offering new interpretive possibilities based on the feelings the images conveyed.”2
Image and imagination.
Thus, Siskind was intelligent enough, was aware and informed enough, of his feelings towards the world and the cultural developments around him to approach a crossroads in his development as an artist, to recognise, that is the key word, to recognise the path he needed, he wanted to take.
And so we are forever grateful to have his abstract expressionist photographs that his spirit guided him towards, photographs that may also light our own path.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
PS. I have added relevant information on Siskind’s art practice, theatres, and ballrooms where possible and I have also included an extract from Gordon Parks’ forward to Siskind’s book Harlem Document.
1/ Jaromir Stephany unpublished interview with Aaron Siskind, February 1963. This interview is in the private papers of Jaormir Stephany quoted in Marcia Battle. “Harlem: A Document,” in Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, pp. 4-6
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Photography has tremendous social value. Upon the photographer rests the responsibility and duty of recording a true image of the world as it is today. Moreover, he must not only show us how we live, but indicate the logical development of our lives.”
Photo Notes, newsletter of the Photo League, August 1938
Aaron Siskind’s photographs from 1935-1940 form the core of the Harlem Document, a landmark sociological and visual study commissioned by the New York Photo League. Siskind headed the Feature Group of this radical, left-leaning documentary collective, which prioritised using photography to advocate for social change. The images capture the vibrancy, harsh realities, and daily life of the Black community in Harlem during the Great Depression.
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Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Kitchen Scene 1937 Gelatin silver print
From 1937 to 1944, Siskind took pictures in and around Harlem – of its businesses, domestic interiors, religious and social organisations, and nightlife. He did so as a member of the New York Photo League – a documentary photography collective with roots in radical leftist politics – and in collaboration with journalist and sociologist Michael Carter and other photographers as part of a cultural study of Harlem. In 1981 fifty-two of Siskind’s images were published in the book Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940 alongside first-person interviews conducted in the late 1930s by writers employed by the Federal Writers Project, including novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison.
MoMA Gallery label from 2024
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Apollo Theater 1937 Gelatin silver print
Apollo Theater
Since opening its doors in 1914 and introducing the first Amateur Night contests in 1934, The Apollo has played a major role in the emergence of jazz, swing, bebop, R&B, gospel, blues, and soul – all quintessentially American music genres. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis Jr., James Brown, Gladys Knight, Luther Vandross, D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, and countless others began their road to stardom on the Apollo stage. Today, The Apollo is a respected nonprofit presenting concerts, theatrical and dance performances, film screenings, educational programs, and community outreach programs.
The neoclassical theater known today as The Apollo’s Historic Theater was designed by George Keister and first owned by Sidney Cohen. In 1914, Benjamin Hurtig and Harry Seamon obtained a thirty-year lease on the newly constructed theater, calling it Hurtig and Seamon’s New Burlesque Theater. Like many American theaters during this time, African-Americans were not allowed to attend as patrons or to perform.
In 1933, Fiorello La Guardia, who would later become New York City’s Mayor, began a campaign against burlesque, and Hurtig & Seamon’s was one of many theaters that would close down. Cohen reopened the building as the 125th Street Apollo Theatre in 1934 with his partner, Morris Sussman, serving as manager. Cohen and Sussman changed the format of the shows from burlesque to variety revues and redirected their marketing attention to the growing African-American community in Harlem.
Frank Schiffman and Leo Brecher took over The Apollo in 1935. The Schiffman and Brecher families would operate the Theater until the late 1970s. The Apollo reopened briefly in 1978 under new management then closed again in November 1979. In 1981, it was purchased by Percy Sutton, a prominent lawyer, politician, media and technology executive, and a group of private investors. Under Sutton’s ownership, the Theater was equipped with a recording and television studio.
Text from the Apollo Theater website. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Lady In Kitchen 1937 Gelatin silver print
Aaron Siskind’s artistic trajectory parallels broader shifts within mid-20th-century American photography. In the 1930s he cut his teeth as a documentary photographer affiliated with the Workers Film and Photo League, an artists’ cooperative that strove to advance progressive political causes. The following decade saw him turn away from studies of society. For the remainder of his career, he created still lifes that aimed to articulate interior states through near-abstract visual fields. Of this dramatic shift in his practice, the artist said, “For some reason or other there was in me the desire to see the world clean and fresh and alive.”1
Siskind’s documentary work was carefully planned and researched in advance. He honed this approach at the Film and Photo League, which he joined in 1933, only three years after receiving his first camera as a honeymoon gift. Among this community of photographers and filmmakers – many of them, like Siskind, the New York-born children of Jewish immigrants – he found technical guidance and critical feedback. When the League’s photographers broke from its filmmakers to establish the standalone Photo League in 1936, Siskind helped form its Feature Group, a unit dedicated to creating photo essays like those appearing in LIFE magazine and being produced by the Farm Security Administration. Collaborative at its core, the Feature Group prioritised the free exchange of ideas: each project began with a discussion of how to approach photographing its subject and ended with the group assessing their effort collectively. “We discovered a relationship between the clarity of one’s thought and feeling and the clarity of picture-making,” Siskind recalled of these formative dialogues.2
Of the many projects the Feature Group completed during Siskind’s four years of leadership, its most extended and ambitious was Harlem Document. This expansive cultural study of Harlem, undertaken between 1937 and 1940 in close consultation with the sociologist Michael Carter, originally aimed to produce a photographically illustrated book authored by Carter. Although the publication never materialised, Siskind’s photographs for Harlem Document indicate the project’s ambitious scope, depicting street life, domestic interiors, and gathering spots ranging from churches to dance halls to theaters.
Samuel Allen, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography, 2025 on the MoMA website [Online] Cited 14/07/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
1/ Aaron Siskind, “The Drama of Objects,” Minicam Photography 8, no. 9 (June 1945), 23.
The Lafayette Theatre (1912–1951), known locally as “the House Beautiful”, was one of the most famous theaters in the Harlem neighbourhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was an entertainment venue located at 132nd Street and 7th Avenue. The first major theatre in New York to desegregate, in its early history the theatre was home to the African American repertory theatre company the Lafayette Players. This group was originally founded by Anita Bush as Anita Bush Stock Company in 1914 and became a part of the Lafayette Theatre in 1916 when the theatre bought the stock company. The Lafayette Players was a successful company from the 1910s through the 1930s; after which the company floundered. In 1951 the theatre closed and was sold to the Williams Institutional Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. The structure was demolished in 2013.
Aaron Siskind’s Harlem document, a mirror of my own past, speaks explicitly for itself. It is an ongoing memory of black people living in crowded kitchenettes; suffering the loneliness of rented bedrooms; prating in leftover churches, and grasping a patch of happiness whenever and wherever they could find it. It is a nostalgic look at a kind of past that threatens to hang around Harlem for a long time to come – to doom it to further frustration and unrest. Those same tenements that once imprisoned me are still there, refusing to crumble, holding other restless black boys for sentence without trial.
I remember swarms of slow-moving people, moving close together up on Lenox Avenue – past child shacks, rib joints, funeral parlours and storefront churches- knowing one another but seldom bothering to speak. A city of blackness crammed inside a white city where, when you walked our the door, you became a stranger. …
Harlem has meant a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, in those days, it meant hunger, cultural devastation, unrequited longing and disillusionment. To others it was the swinging, exciting capitol of the entire Black world, the exotic Mecca of melting music, good times and dancing feet. Yet, for some, it was a sanctuary where loftier dreams were fostered; where now and then some of those dreams were realised, but where mostly they were hopelessly spent. To just about everyone who has worked in the vital processes of its survival, whose life has been textured by its tradition, Harlem is a place that won’t give up. Wobbly now under the impact of the past decades, its history mirror those problems its mother country once endured.
Extract from Gordon Parks. “Foreword,” in Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Street Scene 1937 Gelatin silver print
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Wishing Tree 1937 Gelatin silver print
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Church Interior 1938 Gelatin silver print
Aaron Siskind’s interest in photography developed after his experiences with both music and poetry when he was an English teacher in the New York public school system. His early pictures were said to have been attempts at transferring musical and poetic concepts into images.2 Later, as a young adult, Siskind did everything from making political speeches on soapboxes in Manhattan to becoming a member of the Junior Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL).3
A friend gave Siskind his first camera in 1930. He soon discovered his attraction for the instrument, and almost simultaneously he discovered and joined the Photo league. At the League he found people who shared his political and social concerns and who were capable and willing to discuss technical information about photography. Many of the members were children of Jewish immigrants and most, like Siskind, were well educated. Their exhibited images documented illiteracy, discrimination, and poverty and called for social reforms on behalf of the working classes. Before joining the League, Siskind had already photographed some of the poverty-stricken areas of Manhattan and was searching for reaction and criticism to these pictures. …
As a photographer Siskind explored symbols and metaphors to create a visual relationship that balanced aesthetic concerns with social documents. Throughout his career the contrast of subject and symbol have dominated. …
With his work in Harlem Siskind’s style may have been changing. “In working from the documentary approach, I had always tried to find what kind of meaning you could get in a picture of that kind, and was beginning to feel that I was not getting it. I felt I wasn’t getting anything really personal, really powerful and special…. My documentary picture were very quiet and very formal.”4
Extract from Marcia Battle. “Harlem: A Document,” in Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, pp. 4-6. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
2/ Carl Chiarenza, Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors (Little, Brown and Co.,), 6.
3/ Carl Chiarenza, “Form and Content in the Early Work of Aaron Siskind,” The Massachusetts Review 19:4 (Winter 1978): 810.
4/ Jaromir Stephany unpublished interview with Aaron Siskind, February 1963. This interview is in the private papers of Jaormir Stephany.
The “Savoy Dancers” refer to the pioneering African American dancers who developed the Lindy Hop and other swing dances at the legendary Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York. Open from 1926 to 1958, the integrated ballroom housed iconic performers like Frankie Manning and Norma Miller who defined the “home of happy feet”.
These legendary dancers revolutionised social dancing by bringing athleticism, airborne aerials, and improvisational jazz styling to the Lindy Hop. Their legacy continues to thrive through modern swing dance communities and archival footage preserved in documentaries like The Spirit Moves.
About the Savoy Ballroom
From 1926 to 1958, the Savoy Ballroom stood at 596 Lenox Avenue as one of the first racially integrated public spaces in the United States. Its 10,000-square-foot, spring-loaded dance floor welcomed thousands nightly and launched a global dance phenomenon. The Savoy hosted legendary artists including Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie, cementing its place at the heart of Harlem’s cultural history.
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) St. Joseph’s House – The Catholic Worker Movement c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Grocery Store 1940 Gelatin silver print
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Lady and Lamp 1940 Gelatin silver print
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Street Scene 1940 Gelatin silver print
Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) Watermelon Man 1940 Gelatin silver print
“There is something so infectious and engaging about these photographs, something that draws you into the transformative freedom of African identities.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Curator: Oluremi C. Onabanjo, The Peter Schub Curator, with the assistance of Chiara M. Mannarino, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography
Air Afrique DJIMA RECORDS 1969 Vinyl 45tour Mono 7 1/16 x 7 1/16″ (18 x 18cm) Air Afrique Collective, courtesy of Lamine Diaoune, Ahmadou-Bamba Thiam, Djiby Kebe, Jeremy Konko
Of being and becoming
Why do I love African photography so much after the “winds of decolonial change” swept through the continent which “saw the disintegration of colonial territories and the formation of transnational solidarity across the African continent and diaspora.”
Firstly, I love the vibrancy present in photographs of everyday life – at the club, with friends, dancing, drinking. I love the hairstyles, I love the fabrics, I love the way people are proud of themselves and their cultural heritage. Joy, love, exuberance, passion. There is something so infectious and engaging about these photographs, something that draws you into the transformative freedom of African identities.
Secondly, I love the studio photographs that enable the sitter to dream the great dreams of life, to imagine who they want to be before the camera. Here, in a symbiotic relationship between the photographer and the sitter, the “studio becomes a kind of imaginative enterprise. You can go and be who you are, or you can go and be who you want to be.” In Sanlé Sory’s studio his “portraits made possible a particular process of being and becoming for his sitters. He reflected the ideas that they wanted to communicate – whether to friends, lovers, strangers, or themselves.” (Gallery label) The resulting portrait made the sitter feel connected to a cosmopolitan world. Both a world of dreams and aspirations and Africans’ lived experiences and realities.
Thirdly, I love how the photographer turns the camera towards himself, conceptually enacting in a staged theatricality of becoming, envisioning himself as different personalities through the act of constructing identities. Heroes, travellers, intellectuals, philosophers and, in Samuel Fosso’s case, prominent figures from 20th-century Pan-African liberation and American civil rights movements. African spirits and activists, intellectuals, and political leaders who fought for Black emancipation across the globe.
Pan-African modes of image-making after the end of colonisation open up, as curator Oluremi C. Onabanjo so eloquently states, “dazzling modes of Pan-African possibility” where everything is possible in every/body. There is no wringing of the hands here, no use of colonial photographs rehashed for contemporary consumption, just a joy, joy, joy in present and future becoming.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Museum of Modern Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Imagination is a Magic carpet Upon which we may soar To distant lands and climes And even go beyond the moon To any planet in the sky If we came from nowhere here Why can’t we go somewhere there?
. Sun Ra, “Imagination,” 1970
The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination showcases how photographic portraits fuel ideas of Pan-African subjectivity and solidarity. On view from December 14, 2025, through July 25, 2026, the exhibition considers the transatlantic call and response that constructed Africa as a political idea, due to the “winds of decolonial change” that swept the African continent in tandem with the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Ideas of Africa is the third exhibition organised at The Museum of Modern Art in celebration of the 2019 gift of modern and contemporary African art from prolific collector Jean Pigozzi. The exhibition features core works from this gift, alongside a selection of recent acquisitions and key loans.
Text from The Museum of Modern Art website
Air Afrique Balafon No. 1 1964 Magazine, softcover 10 5/8 x 8 1/4″ (27 x 21cm) Air Afrique Collective, courtesy of Lamine Diaoune, Ahmadou-Bamba Thiam, Djiby Kebe, Jeremy Konko
From 1961 to 2002, Air Afrique served as the official transnational carrier for francophone West and Central Africa, providing regular jet service throughout the continent and internationally. The airline was also deeply committed to the production of Pan-African arts and culture. It funded vinyl records, published books on African history, and produced the in-flight magazine Balafon, which reported on events across Africa and beyond. Twenty years after the airline shuttered, a Paris-based artist collective formed to revitalise the spirit of Air Afrique through design collaborations, film programs, and a magazine. Their collection of archival ephemera, on view here, comprises gifts and purchases from former Air Afrique staff.
Inspired by the international activities of Air Afrique, both past and present, this reading table presents issues of the airline’s in-flight magazine, Balafon, one of which features a portrait of the Malian photographer Malick Sidibé on its cover. This table also includes a selection of photobooks, catalogues, and scholarly publications, celebrating the circulation of images and ideas in Africa during the decolonial era. These books are additionally available to browse within the gallery, offering further directions for reading, thinking, dreaming, and imagining.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Air Afrique Balafon No. 3 1965 Magazine, softcover 10 5/8 x 8 1/4″ (27 x 21cm) Air Afrique Collective, courtesy of Lamine Diaoune, Ahmadou-Bamba Thiam, Djiby Kebe, Jeremy Konko
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at right two Untitled photographs from the series African Spirits (2008, below) by Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962) Untitled from the series African Spirits 2008 Gelatin silver print 64 1/8 x 48 1/16″ (162.8 x 122cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Family of Man Fund
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at left photographs by Seydou Keïta (Malian, 1923-2001); and at right, two Untitled photographs from the series African Spirits (2008, below) by Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962) Untitled from the series African Spirits 2008 Gelatin silver print 64 1/8 x 48 1/16″ (162.8 x 122cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Family of Man Fund
Artist, Silvia Rosi:African Spirit is a series of self-portraits where Fosso transforms himself into key figures of the Pan-African liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s.
I’m Silvia Rosi. I’m an artist working with photography and moving image.
Samuel Fosso started his career taking portraits of people in the studio, where there was always this act of constructing identities through props, poses, and the photographer’s imagination. At the end of each workday, Fosso would turn the camera toward himself.
In this series, he recreates these iconic photographs, taking on the faces of Angela Davis, of Martin Luther King, while at the same time remaining himself. For me, there’s this sense of recognition but also his own presence makes us question what it means to embody these figures.
The lighting and the poses and the composition echo this studio portrait tradition, but there’s always an element of theatricality that keeps you aware of the labor of becoming someone else. He neutralises the scene, removing the backdrop, and we’re forced to look at the subject that we have in front.
Turning the camera inwards can be really revolutionary. I think that’s something that deeply resonates with me, this idea of being in charge of my own representation and giving yourself complexity through images.
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing five Untitled photographs from the series African Spirits (2008) by Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962)
The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imaginationshowcases how photographic portraits fuel ideas of Pan-African subjectivity and solidarity. On view from December 14, 2025, through July 25, 2026, the exhibition considers the transatlantic call and response that constructed Africa as a political idea, due to the “winds of decolonial change” that swept the African continent in tandem with the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Ideas of Africa is the third exhibition organised at The Museum of Modern Art in celebration of the 2019 gift of modern and contemporary African art from prolific collector Jean Pigozzi. The exhibition features core works from this gift, alongside a selection of recent acquisitions and key loans. Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination is organised by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, The Peter Schub Curator, with the assistance of Chiara M. Mannarino, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography.
Conceptually influenced by The Idea of Africa, a landmark publication by the late philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe (1941-2025), the exhibition brings together works by 20th-century photographers such as Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, Jean Depara, Sanlé Sory, and Ambroise Ngaimoko, who worked across key urban centers in West and Central Africa during the “golden age of African portraiture.” Images by James Barnor and Kwame Brathwaite illuminate Pan-African modes of image-making across the African diaspora. Works by contemporary artists of African descent, including Samuel Fosso, Silvia Rosi, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, alongside ephemera selected from the archive of the artist collective Air Afrique, embody the physical circulation of these ideas across space and time.
“As we continue to witness transformative shifts in the global geopolitical order, it is instructive to revisit a moment in history that saw the disintegration of colonial territories and the formation of transnational solidarity across the African continent and diaspora. This exhibition locates dazzling modes of Pan-African possibility in images made by inventive photographers who registered and beckoned in new worlds,” says Oluremi C. Onabanjo.
Ideas of Africa features a reading room as a tribute to the aspirations of knowledge production and the proliferation of the photographic image in print media during the decolonial era. In the reading room, visitors can access a selection of historical and contemporary photobooks and publications.
On the occasion of the exhibition, MoMA is publishing a richly illustrated catalogue featuring a lead essay by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, contributions by poet Momtaza Mehri and film programmer Yasmina Price, and reproductions of key texts by Brent Hayes Edwards and V. Y. Mudimbe. 140 pages, 105 color illustrations. Hardcover, $50. ISBN: 978-1-63345-171-1.
Press release from The Museum of Modern Art
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at left, Malick Sidibé Nuit de Noël (Happy Club) [Christmas Eve] (1963, below); and at second left, Malick Sidibé Regardez-Moi [Look at Me!] (1962, below)
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016) Nuit de Noël (Happy Club) [Christmas Eve] 1963 (printed January 2006) Gelatin silver print Image: 39 x 39″ (99 x 99.1cm) Sheet: 47 1/4 x 47 1/4″ (120 x 120cm) Frame: 53 9/16 x 53 9/16″ (136 x 136cm) Courtesy The Walther Collection, New York / Neu-Ulm
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016) Regardez-Moi [Look at Me!] 1962 (printed January 2006) Gelatin silver print Image: 39 3/8 x 39″ (100 x 99cm) Sheet: 47 1/4 x 47 1/4″ (120 x 120cm) Frame: 52 3/16 x 52 3/16 x 1″ (132.5 x 132.5 x 2.5cm) Courtesy The Walther Collection, New York / Neu-Ulm
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936–2016) Boxeur (Boxer) 1966 Gelatin silver print Image: 16 15/16 x 16 15/16″ (43 x 43 cm) Frame: 27 9/16 x 27 9/16 x 9/16″ (70 x 70 x 1.5cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection
For Sidibé, the roving “eye of Bamako,” the city was his studio. Active during the 1960s and ’70s, Sidibé shot on 35mm film and often printed proofs of the exposures he took at weekend parties. He arranged them sequentially on pastel cardstock and displayed them at his studio so that clients might purchase souvenirs of their exploits. Sidibé’s images of youth culture emphatically pushed back against Mali’s normative state attitudes and expectations of decorum. Revelling in effusive gestures and strong poses, he deftly photographed a community full of elegance, style, and sensational flair that staked its claim on a connection to a global African Diaspora.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016) Nuit du 10 octobre 1970 (Night of October 10, 1970) 1970 Twenty-two gelatin silver prints mounted on paper 12 3/4 x 19 3/4″ (32.4 x 50.2cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Judith and Wm. Brian Little Fund
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016) Untitled July 28, 1973 Twenty-four gelatin silver prints mounted on paper 12 3/4 x 19 3/4″ (32.4 x 50.2cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Judith and Wm. Brian Little Fund
“This wind of change blowing through Africa … is no ordinary wind,” wrote Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, in 1963. “It is a raging hurricane against which the old order cannot stand.” In the 1960s, independence movements swept across the African continent, resulting in the disintegration of colonial territories. These transformative struggles coincided with an exhilarating campaign for civil rights in the United States, forging a transatlantic call-and-response that established “Africa” as a political idea.
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination examines the role of portrait photography within this emerging sense of Pan-Africanism. It unites portraits by mid-century photographers from across West and Central Africa and works by contemporary artists of African descent, illuminating different modes of image making and forms of transnational solidarity. As the art historian Kobena Mercer has argued, “‘Africa’ has never been a static entity, confined to the boundaries of geography, but has always had a diasporic dimension.” Embedded within the exhibition is a reading room featuring a selection of photobooks, alongside archival ephemera from the Paris-based collective Air Afrique. Following in the wake of the eponymous international airline, the group has continued the circulation of Pan-African culture and ideas into the present day.
Conceptually influenced by the late philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe’s book The Idea of Africa (1994), in which he exposes Western views of Africa as politicised constructions, this exhibition demonstrates how African photographers grappled with Africa as a political idea in their own ways. Presenting subjects for whom the personal was undeniably political, their images assert photography’s unique potential to creatively reflect our surroundings and beckon new worlds. At a time when profound shifts are once again transforming the global geopolitical order, Ideas of Africa attests to the enduring relevance of these themes.
Gallery text from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at left the work of Silvia Rosi (below); and at right, Njideka Akunyili Crosby And We Begin to Let Go (2013, below)
Silvia Rosi (Togolese and Italian, b. 1992) Disintegrata di profilo (Disintegrated in Profile) 2024 Inkjet print 31 1/2 x 31 1/2″ (80 x 80cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Carl Jacobs Fund
Rosi has said, “I’m not just performing, but reflecting on history.” Through photographic self-portraits, the artist examines personal, familial, and national narratives of migration, memory, and belonging. Deeply informed by the history of West African studio portraiture, Rosi’s images elegantly synthesise the formal strategies of mid-century African photographers, including many of those represented in this exhibition. Rosi often reenacts moments from her family’s past. Disintegrated Waiting, for instance, recalls when her mother first arrived in Italy from Togo. “She once said, ‘I used to be integrated, now I’m disintegrated,'” the artist shared. “To me this phrase is … an expression of the experience of diaspora.”
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Silvia Rosi (Togolese and Italian, b. 1992) Sposa italiana disintegrata (Disintegrated Italian Wife) 2024 Inkjet print 31 1/2 x 31 1/2″ (80 x 80cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Carl Jacobs Fund
Njideka Akunyili Crosby (Nigerian, born 1983) And We Begin to Let Go 2013 Acrylic, acetone transfers, charcoal, pastel, marble dust, and collage on paper Sheet: 84 x 105″ (213.4 x 266.7cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Promised gift of Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine Farley
Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby moved to the US at the age of 17 (after winning the green card lottery in her home town) to train as a painter at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and, later, Yale University. Here, as in many of her portraits, Crosby gives an intimate portrayal of her interracial marriage and day-to-day life in America. She combines photo-transfer processes with painting and collaged fabrics, fusing Nigerian and American materials, images, and cultural traditions.
In her practice, Akunyili Crosby meditates on familial life within a transcultural context. Her large-scale compositions of everyday domestic scenes synthesise drawing, painting, printmaking, and photography. And We Begin to Let Go depicts the artist and her husband, who leans over her shoulder. To make it, Akunyili Crosby drew from Nigerian print media publications and her family’s photographic archive. She united these images’ varied photographic textures through the same formal treatment: acetone transfer, a printmaking technique through which a printed image is transferred onto another surface using an acetone solvent. Images of smiling faces, elaborate coifs, and patterned clothing suffuse the picture plane, accruing on the surfaces this marital encounter.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at left, Njideka Akunyili Crosby And We Begin to Let Go (2013, above); and at centre, Kwame Brathwaite Untitled (Sikolo with Carolee Prince Designs) (1964-1968, below)
Kwame Brathwaite (American, 1938-2023) Untitled (Sikolo with Carolee Prince Designs) 1964-1968 Inkjet print, printed 2024 30 x 30″ (76.2 x 76.2cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Photography Fund
Brathwaite, for whom photography functioned at the nexus of Black artistic, political, and cultural expression, rhythmically documented jazz scenes in Harlem and the Bronx. In 1956 he cofounded the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios (AJASS) in the South Bronx, where he made structured portraits of the Grandassa Models, a group of women who were part of the Black Is Beautiful movement of the 1960s and ’70s. “Black Is Beautiful was my directive … It was a time when people were protesting injustices related to race, class, and human rights around the globe,” Brathwaite said. “I focused on perfecting my craft so that I could use my gift to inspire thought, relay ideas, and tell stories of our struggle, our work, our liberation. … Oppression still exists today, and we must keep fighting, keep on pushing until we are free.”
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Kwame Brathwaite (American, 1938-2023) Untitled (Nomsa with Earrings) 1964-1968 Inkjet print, printed 2024 15 x 15″ (38.1 x 38.1cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Photography Fund
Felix Akinniran Olunloyo (Nigerian) Untitled c. 1950-1970 Gelatin silver print 5 1/2 x 3 9/16″ (13.9 x 9cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Felix Akinniran Olunloyo (Nigerian) Untitled c. 1950-1970 Gelatin silver print 5 1/2 x 3 9/16″ (13.9 x 9cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Oumar Ka (Senegalese, 1930-2020) Untitled (Two Women with Thatched Roof House) 1959-1968 Gelatin silver print, printed 2024 17 × 17″ (43.2 × 43.2 cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of Bernard Lumpkin and Carmine Boccuzzi in honor of Darren Walker
Historian, Giulia Paoletti: Getting a portrait done was a serious business, because this single portrait would circulate and stand for this person.
My name is Giulia Paoletti, and I am a researcher on photography and modern art in Africa.
In 1959, Oumar Ka met a photographer who gave him a camera, so he learned by himself. Photography in Senegal was extremely popular. Dozens and dozens of studios existed. But he started going from village to village taking portraits, and then he would go home, develop the negatives, and return the following week with the prints. So, you meet his sitters by their own home, in towns, sometimes in this open landscape. And that is a major distinction from other photographers who worked in a studio.
In this photograph, we see two young women in matching outfits, posing for the camera against a white backdrop attached to this thatched-roof house. The landscape, the architecture, the sky – this is part of who they are and how they want to be perceived. They’re young, they’re serious, they’re confident.
As Senegal is shifting from a colonised place to an independent country, these are sitters that are making visible their experience of modernisation, which looked very different from the experience if someone lived in the capital city. There is often this tendency to flatten what is African modernity, and instead it’s important to show the variety of experiences and subjects at the time.
Sanlé Sory (Burkinabé, b. 1943) L’Intellectuel (The Intellectual) 1970-85 Gelatin silver print 8 1/8 x 8 1/8″ (20.6 x 20.6cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Photography Fund
“Everyone chooses what they want in photography,” Sory once said. First opening his studio, Volta Photo, in Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso), in 1960, Sory organised bals poussières (or “dust balls,” named after the dirt clouds that dancers kicked up) in the fields of the nearby Kou Valley. The sound of his Multiblitz flash accompanied the percussion at parties, setting an elusive tone for his reportage de nuit (nighttime journalism). At Volta Photo, Sory’s portraits made possible a particular process of being and becoming for his sitters. He reflected the ideas that they wanted to communicate – whether to friends, lovers, strangers, or themselves.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Sanlé Sory (Burkinabé, b. 1943) Le Voyageur (The Traveller) 1970-1985 Gelatin silver print 8 1/8 x 8 1/8″ (20.6 x 20.6cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Photography Fund
Historian, Antawan I. Byrd: One of the fundamental principles of studio portraiture, especially as it developed in West Africa, is that the studio becomes a kind of imaginative enterprise. You can go and be who you are, or you can go and be who you want to be.
Hello, I’m Antawan I. Byrd. I am a curator, and my research focuses on photography in West Africa during the mid-20th century.
Sanlé Sory opened up his own photography studio in Bobo-Dioulasso, one of the major cities in present-day Burkina Faso. This is a time right after independence, in 1960, and so there is this sense of optimism and hope about the sovereign nation.
Sory once remarked, “Fun is central to my work.” I think he’s speaking about the dynamics of collaboration. Oftentimes, clients would line up outside of the studio, and Sory would have a sort of menu that they can choose from. They could point and say, “Sory, I’d like this portrait here, and I’d like to pose with that prop there.”
Here we’re looking at six portraits, and they’re assuming different personalities. There’s one figure who appears as the intellectual, reading a newspaper. Another figure standing powerfully with his hands in the air as if he’s a boxer. There’s another wielding a Air Afrique briefcase, suggesting that he is a traveller.
When we think about the studio as a kind of imaginative space, it’s possible that the figure with the briefcase has just come back from a trip. But it’s entirely possible that he’s never left Bobo-Dioulasso at all, and holding that briefcase is a way to signal his ambition to travel.
J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere (Nigerian, 1930-2014) Brush Eko Bridge 1973 Two gelatin silver prints Each 11 x 8″ (27.9 x 20.3cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Family of Man Fund
In 1968 Ojeikere embarked on a monumental project to document the myriad hairstyles worn by women across a newly independent Nigeria. Over the next seven years, he amassed more than one thousand photographs. Together, these rigorously composed images form a portrait of a nation undergoing social and physical transformation – with feminine beauty standards providing the ultimate symbol. In Brush Eko Bridge, clean lines appear across a woman’s carefully parted scalp, her hair threaded to sculptural effect. In profile her hairdo evokes the highways and architectural developments that were then populating the Lagos skyline.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Historian, Antawan I. Byrd: The hairstyles project is often described as Ojeikere’s most ambitious body of work, and it’s a body of work that he pursued over nearly half a century.
My name’s Antawan Byrd. I’m an art historian and curator based in Chicago.
J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere evolved as a photographer alongside major political shifts in Nigerian history. 1960 is when the country attains independence from British rule. Ojeikere began to attend many of the festivals that were celebrating traditional culture. Hair design was coming back into fashion after a long period of being regarded as retrograde by the colonial government. It was at one of those festivals that he began to make his earliest images of Nigerian hairstyles.
He was so fascinated by the nuances of the designs as you encounter them from different angles. Some of the hair designs are straightforward cornrow styles, whereas others are realised through the use of thread that’s been wrapped around strands of hair.
Many of the hair designs carry references to contemporary bridges and buildings in terms of their architectural design. That’s in part because after independence, the nation is being built, the skyline is being built, the hairstyles are being built. And so I think for Ojeikere, he was conscious of the multiplicity of changes that were happening. It’s simultaneously about hair and the tradition of hair, and yet it’s also about architecture and commerce and trade.
James Barnor (Ghanaian, born 1929) Ever Young Studio, Accra c. 1954-1959 Gelatin silver print, printed 2018-20 9 1/2 x 9 1/2″ (24.1 x 24.1cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Acquired through the generosity of Heidi and Richard Rieger
Artist, James Barnor: Everything that happened in Accra passed through my street, and I call myself Lucky Jim. Anything that was happening, I was there.
I’m James Barnor. I was born on the 6th of June 1929. I had witnessed photography from a very small age because my mother’s brother was a professional photographer. My cousin was practicing in Accra, in Ghana. Because it was in the family, I must have thought, “Ah, this is something I could do in the future.”
Portraiture was number one. People are more important than places. I love people. ’53, I got a studio and I called it Ever Young. I thought about making people young, or even [laughs] better than they were before.
My sister was a nurse, and so I knew some nurses, and Evelyn was at the nursing training college. This is a portrait that I took of her. I had so many different backgrounds. And this was actually drawn on the wall. This is a sky. You can see the clouds. When I look at the different tones, from the white highlight to the black of the hair, it’s so very nice. This is a picture that I like very much.
I’m lucky to be alive and to be telling the story about my work. The inspiration that people get from my work will carry on and inspire others to develop their own way. The future is going to be grander because of photography.
James Barnor (Ghanaian, b. 1929) Portrait of Evelyn Abbew, Ever Young Studio, Accra c. 1954-1959 Gelatin silver print, printed 2018-2020 9 1/2 x 9 1/2″ (24.1 x 24.1cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Acquired through the generosity of Ruth Nordenbrook
Jean Depara (Congolese born Angola, 1928-1997) Un Jazzeur (Jazzman) 1960 Gelatin silver print, printed later 23 x 19″ (58.4 x 48.3cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Historian, Sandrine Colard: Depara’s images, when you look at them, you see mostly people partying at nighttime or in his studio. So you don’t directly see people articulating a political discourse, but their bodies are.
My name is Sandrine Colard, and I’m a historian of African art and photography.
Jean Depara was living in Léopoldville, which will become Kinshasa. It was the capital of the Belgian Congo, seen as a very modern city for Africa at that time.
This is a portrait of a Black man in a suit and tie. The way the arms of this man are folded upon themselves – he’s touching himself in a delicate way. Under a colonial system, Black men are seen as a workforce. Your body is to be put into service of colonial power, and so the very fact of dressing up, this delicate relationship to his own body – for pleasure, enjoyment, beauty – is just something that’s radically opposing the construction of Black masculinity in the colonial Congo.
The fact that it’s also entitled Jazzeur makes a connection with music. Jazz is a diasporic language throughout the world, and a musician is definitely not someone who is enlisted into the colonial economy. All of that together, I would say, is really a sort of different portrait being constructed for Congolese masculinity at that time.
Jean Depara (Congolese, born Angola, 1928-1997) Una Moziki c. 1960 Gelatin silver print, printed later 23 x 19″ (58.4 x 48.3cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Jean Depara (Congolese, born Angola, 1928-1997) Le Progrès (The Progress) 1975 Gelatin silver print, printed later 15 3/4 x 11 13/16″ (40 x 30cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Seydou Keïta (Malian, 1923-2001) Untitled 1954 Gelatin silver print, printed later 46 15/16 x 65 7/8″ (119.2 x 167.3cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Introduction
Curator, Oluremi C. Onabanjo: I’m Oluremi Onabanjo. I’m the Peter Schub Curator of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art.
This exhibition includes some of the most iconic image-makers working across cities in West and Central Africa, at a moment when the continent was transitioning from European colonial powers to independent nations run by Africans themselves. Within this context, people are really interested in what it means to be themselves. What are the dreams you have, the places you want to go? How do you see yourself? Photographic portraits are the perfect way to wrestle with these questions.
And that’s important for understanding the great Seydou Keïta, who was working in Bamako, in French Sudan, but which became, in 1960, an independent Mali. People who came to Keïta’s studio were interested in being seen as connected to a cosmopolitan world. Keïta was extremely proud of making people look beautiful. He used sunlight for all of his photographs. He had a number of props – watches, radios, rings – to gesture to their investment in this global imaginary that they are constructing with Keïta.
With this exhibition, I encourage you to really think about how a portrait is made. These are deliberately constructed compositions, and when we are attentive to those moves, we might see things anew.
Seydou Keïta (Malian, 1923-2001) Untitled (Bamako) 1956-1957 Gelatin silver print, printed 1997 15 9/16 x 22 1/8″ (39.5 x 56.2cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Family of Man Fund
Seydou Keïta (Malian, 1923-2001) Untitled 1956 Modern gelatin silver print Image: 22 3/8 x 15 11/16″ (56.8 x 39.8cm) Frame: 30 3/16 x 23 7/16″ (76.7 x 59.6cm) Sheet: 23 7/8 x 19 15/16″ (60.7 x 50.7cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination catalogue cover
” … the human body does not exist and is not understandable apart from the ‘social construction of reality’.” ~ Ted Polhemus
“Hence all of us, in modern social conditions, live as though surrounded by mirrors; in these we search for the appearance of an unblemished, socially valued self.” ~ Anthony Giddens
Embodiment is the fundamental condition we share.
~ Embodiment refers to the representation or expression of an abstract idea, quality, or feeling in a tangible, visible, or physical form. It describes a person, action, or object that perfectly exemplifies a concept. (Cambridge Dictionary)
~ At its core, the word stems from the root “embody,” meaning “to give a body to”. Philosophically, it refers to the condition of a subject (like a person) inhabiting or being associated with a physical form. (Oxford Academic)
Giving form to the intangible
~ Embodiment links together both broadly cultural and circumstantial usages, the body taking on its meaning at the intersection of narrative, culture, and social interaction… Nowadays, with the current interest in lived experience and embodiment, we assume that some level of cultural meaning is implied in pre-reflection as well. (Cambridge English Corpus)
~ Pre-reflection describes an implicit, automatic awareness that accompanies human experience before you pause to consciously analyse or think about what you are doing. It is an unmediated, “in-the-moment” state of being. (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)
~ In continental philosophy – most notably the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Edmund Husserl – pre-reflective consciousness is the immediate, tacit knowledge that an experience is happening to you.
When you are in the zone, as the energy flows through you, in the background you are implicitly aware of taking a photograph – but not in a reflective state, “I have taken a photograph”.
For me, there is a union of mindfulness, body, subject, camera – a seeming suspension of time and space – which may lead to a “revelatio”, a revelation of spirit, a pulling back of the curtain to reveal what is beyond. As a good friend and fellow photographer Frank Vic observes, “To emerge from “the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence” is to let go of the photographer’s intense desire for control and egoistic attachment. Only by facing the subject with an attitude of utmost humility is it possible for the lens to capture a truly objective and sacred “revelation”.”
In modern psychology, the pre-reflective unconscious refers to how your personal history, organising principles, and mental schemas shape your experience without you actively noticing it (Encyclopaedia.com). Thus, it is how unconsciously aware you are of your surroundings, how informed you are through your conversations and reading, how attuned you are to the energy of the body and the world – that directs your gaze.
Some pertinent quotations below.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
PS. The exhibition is divided into four interesting thematic sections – Surface Tension; Kinetic Beauty; Know Thyself; Enduring. Such a pity there are not more photographs to illustrate the many ideas contained within each section.
Many thankx to the Phoenix Art Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of humility. To be objective, to use one’s reason, is possible only if one has achieved and attitude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence which one has as a child.”
Erich Fromm. The Art of Loving. London: Allen and Unwin, 1957, p. 120.
” … the human body does not exist and is not understandable apart from the ‘social construction of reality’. Our bodies and our perception of them constitute an important part of our socio-cultural heritage. They are not simply objects which we inherit at birth, but are socialized (enculturated) throughout life and this process of collectively sanctioned bodily modification may serve as an important instrument for our socialization (enculturation) in a more general sense. That is, in learning to have a body, we also begin to learn about our ‘social body’ – our society.”
Ted Polhemus. Social Aspects of the Human Body. Penguin: Harmonsworth, 1978, p. 21 quoted in Morag MacSween. Anorexic Bodies: A Feminist and Sociological Perspective on Anorexia Nervosa. London: Routledge, 1993, p. 115.
“Consumer capitalism, with its efforts to standardise consumption and to shape tastes through advertising, plays a basic role in furthering narcissism. The idea of generating an educated and discerning public has long since succumbed to the pervasiveness of consumerism, which is a ‘society dominated by appearances’. Consumption addresses the alienated qualities of modern social life and claims to be their solution: it promises the very things the narcissist desires – attractiveness, beauty and personal popularity – through the consumption of the ‘right’ kinds of goods and services. Hence all of us, in modern social conditions, live as though surrounded by mirrors; in these we search for the appearance of an unblemished, socially valued self.”
Anthony Giddens. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. California: Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 172.
Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing Claire A. Warden’s photograph Genetics Nd (above) from the series Mimesis (2015-ongoing)
Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body
Each of us moves through the world in a body. Though we are marked by differences in our appearances, abilities, and lived experience, embodiment is the fundamental condition we share. Our bodies both empower and limit us: these vessels hold our joy and suffering, our pleasure and pain. They withstand pressure, scrutiny, and change. Through our bodies we confront the edges of our strength, what is in our control and what is not, and the gaps between how we see ourself and how we are perceived. Bodies are sites of contradiction.
Spanning 150 years of images making, and spotlighting several Arizona based artists, this exhibition explores how artists use photography to grapple with bodily existence in all its dimensionality. The camera is a powerful tool for taking an unflinching look at ourselves and others: examining the body’s surface and physicality, suspending its form in motion, and considering how it bears traces of all we endure, from birth to death and everything in between. As a time-based medium, photography is uniquely poised to incrementally record our continuous physical transformation.
Wall text from the exhibition (in the image above)
Mimesis is an ongoing series of large-scale cameraless, abstract photographs that explore identity, representation, resistance, and Opacity.
Mimesis is an ongoing series that engages identity, representation, and language through abstraction and experimental image-making. The creation of this work comes at a time when the struggle to accept the unfamiliar or unkown is pervasive in American culture. When looking at much of my work, the urge to ask “what is it?” echoes the question, “what are you?” – a question directed to me countless times as a person of colour with a diverse ethnocultural heritage and one I increasingly tend to resist. That resistance carries through the work as resistance to definition as well as the hegemonic gaze and, instead, emphasizes Opacity and illegibility. These concepts, informed by anti-essentialism and decolonial theory, ultimately make way for my experimental image-making practice as mode to subvert the problematics of representation in photography, particularly in addressing experiences had by people of color.
For this reason, I believe it is important to know that the Mimesis series is photographic – cameraless photographs – and that I developed a cameraless process that uses saliva to break down the emulsion of film. What is left is metallic silver and my biologic matter – thus exploring photographic materiality, identity formation, and illegibility. These works of self-portraiture do not show a viewer what I look like but are built from my DNA and shaped by my experiences.
Text from the PhMuseum website. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
About the exhibition
Drawn primarily from the collections of the Center for Creative Photography and Phoenix Art Museum, Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body showcases a wide range of historical and contemporary works that explore the ways photographers have represented the human figure and bodily experiences of movement, aging, disability, and more.
Featured works demonstrate how artists have grappled with physicality, dimension, beauty, form, and the politics of the body in the landscape and urban environment. Subjects are presented in the context of growing older, sports, and abstraction, offering audiences the opportunity to consider the body’s ability to morph and bear traces of lived experiences.
Text from the Phoenix Art Museum website
Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at right, Richard Avedon Esther Blackmon, sideshow performer, Sidney, Iowa, August 12, 1979 (1979, below)
Surface Tension
How much can you learn about another person by looking at them? Our bodies are the interface between ourselves and the world, but there is often a gap between our exterior presentation and our inner lives. A photograph grants us the license to study someone’s appearance longer than is socially acceptable during real-time interactions, though the viewer must still draw conclusions from what is outwardly visible.
The photographs in this section probe this tension between exteriority and interiority, showcasing what is lost and gained in translating the body’s physicality in the flat plane of an image. By abstracting the body, photographs can help us see the human form anew. Many of these pictures show how skin signifies aesthetic, cultural, and social meanings, even functioning as a canvas for self-expression.
Wall text from the exhibition
Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004) Esther Blackmon, sideshow performer, Sidney, Iowa, August 12, 1979 (installation view) 1979 Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona Richard Avedon Archive Gift of the artist
Photographs of people can both exploit and empower. The power dynamic of a portrait involves not only the interaction between the photographer and subject, but also the viewer’s projections, assumptions and interpretation. Resisting others’ projections of shame about her appearance, Esther Blackmon proclaimed: “I live a normal and happy life.” Born in North Carolina, Blackmon (1926-2003) lived with a hereditary skin disease called ichthyosis which caused dryness and baldness. This unique aspect of her phenotype earned her the nickname “The Alligator Girl.” Actively participating in the carnival industry for 56 years, Blackmon regarded herself with pride. “People born unusual are not freaks … I’d say they are very special people.”
Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at left, Leon Borensztein Woman with Tattoo, San Francisco (1984, below); at second left bottom, Stephen Marc, Untitled (2017, below); and at third right bottom, Diane Arbus Tattooed Man at a Carnival, Md. (1970, below)
Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) Tattooed Man at a Carnival, Md. 1970 Gelatin silver print
Kinetic Beauty
Athletic pursuits are one form of human achievement. Photographs of the body in motion attest to a fascination with witnessing bodies at the threshold of their physical limits, accomplishing seemingly superhuman feats or embodying physical ideals. These images simultaneously chart another set of limits; the evolution of photographic technology itself. Some pictures are from an athletic context and some are not, but all arrest fluid, operatic movements of the body in a way that was previously inaccessible to real-time vision. Shutter speeds reached 1/1000th of a second by the end of the 19th century and continued to shorten, enabling photographers to dissect instantaneous components of complex motions. “Seeing” faster than the eye can perceive, the camera revealed new dimensions of bodily grace, strength, and power.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at top left, Charles “Teenie” Harris New York Cubans (1941, below); at bottom left, Eadweard J. Muybridge Animal Locomotion, Plate 521: A: Walking, B: Ascending a Step, C: Throwing the Disc, D: Using a Shovel, E: Using a Pick, 1884-85 (1887, below); at second left, Harold Edgerton Golf Drive by Densmore Shute, 1938 (1938, below); at centre left, Terrell Groggins Gabriels and Shields Square Up Round 1 (2018, below); at centre right, Walter Iooss Michael Jordan, Phoenix at Chicago, 1933 (1933, below); and at far right, Robert Mapplethorpe Lisa Lyon (1983)
Charles “Teenie” Harris (American, 1908-1998) New York Cubans 1941 Gelatin silver print
New York Cubans baseball player Horacio Martinez leaping above third base at Forbes Field
Eadweard J. Muybridge (English, 1830-1904) Animal Locomotion, Plate 521: A: Walking, B: Ascending a Step, C: Throwing the Disc, D: Using a Shovel, E: Using a Pick, 1884-85 1887 Collotype Center for Creative Photography University of Arizona: Purchase
Eadweard J. Muybridge (English, 1830-1904) Animal Locomotion, Plate 521: A: Walking, B: Ascending a Step, C: Throwing the Disc, D: Using a Shovel, E: Using a Pick, 1884-85 (details) 1887 Collotype Center for Creative Photography University of Arizona: Purchase
This winter, Phoenix Art Museum presents Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body, an exploration of the ways in which photographers across history have represented and reckoned with the human body and its associated dimensionality, evolution, and politicization. Drawn primarily from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona in Tucson, along with select works from the PhxArt Collection and those by Arizona- based contemporary artists, the exhibition showcases more than 80 wide-ranging works that contend with the body’s form, physicality, and limits. Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body will be on view at PhxArt from January 24, 2026, through June 28, 2026.
“Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body offers a view into the human experience that is both compelling and relatable,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “From sports imagery and self-portraiture to abstract compositions, this exhibition considers all aspects of the body in every stage of evolution. We are excited to once again work with the Center for Creative Photography to present a captivating collection of photographic works, shown in conversation with new acquisitions to the Phoenix Art Museum Collection by contemporary voices.”
Spanning works captured from the 19th century through the present, Muscle Memory offers a compelling look at the dynamism of the human body with works by artists such as:
John Gutmann • Richard Avedon • Brian Weil • Lauren Greenfield • Rosalind Fox Solomon • Anne Noggle • Frances Murray • Walter Iooss • Diane Arbus • Manuel Álvarez Bravo • Imogen Cunningham • Arno Rafael Minkkinen • Roy DeCarava • Harold Edgerton • Aaron Siskind • Charles “Teenie” Harris • W. Eugene Smith • Leon Borensztein • Jan Groover • Ittetsu Morishita • John Coplans • Robert Mapplethorpe • Eadweard J. Muybridge • Graciela Iturbide • Barbara Crane • Nan Goldin • William Camargo • Marcus Chormicle • Mehrdad Mirzaie • Claire A. Warden • Zhang Huan
The exhibition’s works are presented across four thematic sections that offer varying views on embodiment and how our bodies at once empower and limit us. Surface Tension considers skin as a surface and what is possible to know about a person by looking at them, including how a subject’s outward appearance can exist in tension with their interiority. Works in this section by artists such as Diane Arbus and John Gutmann spotlight individuals who have changed their outward appearance with tattoos, makeup, and other markings, exploring the human impulse to use the body as a canvas for personal expression.
Kinetic Beauty features the body in motion, with a specific focus on sports imagery. It explores how bodies interact and take shape in athletic settings, particularly those that require high levels of physical performance, endurance, and even contortion. Works in this section include images of bodybuilders by Robert Mapplethorpe and Brian Weil and a photograph by Walter Iooss featuring Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, as well as abstract studies of bodily motion associated with physical training, strength, and aspiration.
Know Thyself highlights the work of photographers who have used the medium of photography, often in the form of serial self-portraiture, to grapple with issues of aging, beauty standards, and self-image. Featured artists in this section include John Coplans, Lauren Greenfield, Anne Noggle, and Rosalind Fox Solomon.
Enduring presents works by Nan Goldin, Ittetsu Morishita, Marcus Chormicle, and others depicting the body as witness and at its physical limits, whether due to physical exertion, illness, injury, or even death and absence, prompting viewers to consider the concepts of endurance and survival.
“Muscle Memory invites audiences to consider the body’s ability to morph in response to and bear traces of lived experience, while also discovering how photographers have used the medium as a tool for self- knowledge and exploration,” said Emilia Mickevicius, the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography at Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography. “Works by living Arizona-based artists Claire A. Warden, Mehrdad Mirzaie, Marcus Chormicle, and Anh-Thuy Nguyen infuse the presentation with contemporary perspectives on the body’s legibility, how it holds memory, and how it becomes a site of negotiation between selves and others, both extending and departing from the concerns of the historical works in the exhibition.”
Press release from the Phoenix Art Museum
Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at left, Robert Mapplethorpe Lisa Lyon (1983); and at second right, a group of photographs by John Coplans
Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at right, a group of photographs by John Coplans
John Coplans (British, 1920-2003) Self-portrait (Back with arms above) 1984 Gelatin silver print
John Coplans (British, 1920-2003) Feet, Frontal 1984 Gelatin silver print
Know Thyself
From toxic beauty standards to agism, pressures to conform, and the pathologising of non-formative identities and lifestyles, cultural messaging interrupts the journey to self-acceptance. The pictures in this section speak to finding a home in one’s body and moving between comfort and discomfort along the way. A particular focus here is serial self-portraiture where photographers train the lens on their own bodies as they reckon with aging. Facing themselves with tender curiosity and vulnerability, they wield the camera as a tool of self-knowledge, confronting their mortality and even revealing in erotic joy. Their pictures suggest the transformative power being seen on one’s own terms.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing photographs by Rosalind Fox Solomon
Rosalind Fox Solomon described photography as a way of “talking about myself.” For five decades Solomon traversed continents documenting expressions of joy, suffering and spirituality across cultures. Simultaneously, she maintained a consistent practice of self-portraiture. In these pictures Solomon looks frankly at her aging body and evolving self, conveying both empathy and self-estrangement. Photographs of nude older women are still taboo today – a product of a culture that values youth as well as images that are conventionally “flattering” – but Solomon’s photographs suggest the power in embracing and representing what is real.
As the saying goes, “the body keeps the score.” The photographs in this gallery explore how the body holds memory. Outwardly visible marks like scars and wrinkles are testaments to what we have survived, traces of time that resonate with the nurture of photographic images. No matter how strong or fortunate we are, each of us must sustain wounds visible and invisible, go through cycles of suffering and healing, and eventually experience death. We also inherit not only physical characteristics but also stories and trauma from our ancestors. The pictures here are reminders of our bodily fragility, but they also brim with aliveness, inspiring reverence for all that human beings have endured across generations.
William Camargo (American, b. 1989) As Far As I Can Get in 10 Seconds From The Swapmeet Parking Lot to the Liquor Store After Divola 2020 Inkjet print 22 x 18 in.
Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at left, Roy DeCarava Force, New York (1963, below); at centre, George Dureau Wilbert with Hook (Nd, below); and at second right, William Camargo As Far As I Can Get in 10 Seconds From The Swapmeet Parking Lot to the Liquor Store After Divola (2020, above)
Roy DeCarava (American, 1919-2009) Force, New York 1963 Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography University of Arizona: Purchase
A woman being arrested at a New York protest
George Dureau (American, 1930-2014) Wilbert with Hook Nd Gelatin silver print
“I feel the heavy weight of history permeating Sander’s almost melancholy portraits, portraits that emanate from a generations long uncertain cultural landscape.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 27th February - 28th June, 2026
Curator: Judy Ditner, the Richard Benson Curator of Photography and Digital Media
Heinrich Hoerle (1 September 1895 – 7 July 1936) was a German constructivist artist of the New Objectivity movement.
Generations
There have been so many words written about one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, August Sander (German, 1876-1964), his magnum opus People of the 20th Century (Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts) (1892-1954) – which consists of over 600 photographs organised into seven categories and 49 portfolios – and his influence on social realist photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, and the later typologies of conceptual photographers such as Bernd and Hiller Becher … what else is there left to say?
We know of his use of an “old fashioned” large-format camera, tripod, glass negatives and long exposure times used for the crispness and detail obtainable in the final print. We observe the many scenarios in which Sander took his photographs, from staged studio portraits, to seemingly impromptu photographs “on the road”, from closely cropped portraits, to medium distance group photos, to group photographs out in the Westwald or the Eifel or basket weavers embedded in the landscape. From low depth of field to high depth of field. From seriously “dead pan” to romantically engaged. We know of the influence of New Objectivity (known in German as Neue Sachlichkeit) on his frontal, unsentimental, realist portraits – his fascinating cast of personages, characters modulating the personal into universal typologies: the farmer, the skilled tradesman, the woman, the artists, etc… character templates that picture archetypes in German history.
All this is known and given. What else can be said?
Personally I feel the heavy weight of history permeating Sander’s almost melancholy portraits, portraits that emanate from a generations long uncertain cultural landscape:
~ The photographs from 1912-1913 in the first posting on this exhibition, such as Farmer Couple – Propriety and Harmony (1912, printed c. 1990-1999), Country Band (1913, printed c. 1990-1999), Country Lads from the Westerwald (1912, printed c. 1990-1999), and Farm Children (c. 1913, printed c. 1990-1999) emerge from a society facing “significant social and political unrest prior to World War I, driven by rigid class hierarchies, rapid industrialisation, and a growing labour movement. The landed aristocracy held significant political power, which bred resentment among the working and middle classes.”
In these four photographs by Sander we have an elderly farmer couple of propriety and harmony facing the prospect of old age and experiencing severe, devastating food shortages during World War I as conscription of agricultural workers and the requisitioning of draft horses for the Imperial German Army paralysed domestic food production, poor harvests and harsh winters further eroding the civilian diet, and inflation making even basic items unaffordable for many (the government taking away or strictly controlling the food produced by farmers during the war) – while the young men in the country band and country lads from the Westerwald would have become machine gun fodder on the fields of Europe.
The children would have had to live through this. The Burgfrieden (civil truce) which had brought political unity and the cessation of strikes at the beginning of the war fell apart during it.1 Revolution in 1918 led to “the downfall of the House of Hohenzollern, the dissolution of the German army, and the demise of the old German social order.”2 General Erich Ludendorff, defacto military commander resigned in October 1918; Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated in November 1918; Prince Max of Baden Chancellor of Germany resigned in November 1918; and King Ludwig III of Bavaria was overthrown in November 1918. Shootings and murders were the order of the day in Berlin.
“In November 1918 … the old regime of Kaiser Wilhelm II was swept away by a revolution. It ended the First World War and led to the establishment of democracy in Germany. The Weimar Republic was born out of the struggle for a new social order and political system.”3
Tumultuous times.
From the outset the new Weimar Republic was always under pressure as the cabaret of cultural life continued its unstable rollercoaster of protests, strikes, murders and social and political upheaval during the interwar years.
“During the interwar years, Germany experienced frequent, deadly street battles between communists and right-wing groups, which bordered on low-intensity civil war:
~ Following World War I, communist uprisings – such as the 1919 Spartacist Uprising in Berlin – were brutally suppressed by far-right volunteer paramilitaries known as the Freikorps.
~ Both sides formed official, heavily armed paramilitary wings. The Communist Party (KPD) utilised the Red Front Fighters’ League (Roter Frontkämpferbund or RFB). Their primary right-wing antagonists were the Nazi Party’s Stormtroopers (Sturmabteilung or SA), alongside the nationalist Stahlhelm and the Social Democratic Reichsbanner.
~ Violence peaked as the Weimar Republic collapsed. Nazi paramilitaries regularly marched directly into working-class, communist strongholds (such as the Wedding and Neukölln districts in Berlin) to intentionally spark brawls. Clashes escalated from brawls to armed gunfire, claiming hundreds of lives on both sides.” (multiple sources)
The great Wall Street Crash of 1929 ramped up the instability, causing severe economic depression in Germany and rampant inflation. “Millions of Germans faced severe hunger and malnutrition because the economic collapse left them without the income to buy food.” This was the era of political violence in Germany (1918-1933) before the fall of the Weimar Republic (1930-1933) when the expansive creativity of artists, the small, hard won civil liberties and the sense of liberal freedom were all swept away by the Nazis in the 1930s.
Tumultuous times.
NOW
You look at the photographs by Sander of human beings from the interwar years and you overlay this knowledge onto them and a kind of melancholy realism descends on you as you appreciate the import of historic events that they were caught up in, the maelstrom, malevolence and disaster of the Second World War that was quickly approaching.
I think of the farm children photographed in 1913 – in 1939 they will be in their thirties and will, most likely, be serving in the German armed forces during the second conflagration. I look at the Peddler (1930, printed c. 1990-1999 below) and the Itinerant Mason (c. 1927, printed c. 1990-1999) and wonder what they did during the war and whether they survived it. I flinch looking at the “Aryan” doppelgängers in Farmers Playing Cards (c. 1920, printed c. 1990-1999) as I imagine them in SS uniforms. And I look at the men in Workers’ Council from the Ruhr Region (1929, printed c. 1990-1999 below) and wonder whether they were later pressed into the army or, perhaps, the Volkssturm (national militia) at the end of the Second World War made up of the young, the injured, the old, to defend the Fatherland from the Russians. To refuse the call invited execution.
I wonder about the Country Girls, Westerwald (1925, printed c. 1990-1999) and how many babies they produced for the Reich and what medals they received. I think about the black man in Circus Performers (1926-1932, printed c. 1990-1999). I think about the persecuted, the Jews and the political prisoners including Sander’s son Political Prisoner [Erich Sander] (1941-1944, printed c. 1990-1999 below) “who was a member of the left wing Socialist Workers’ Party (SAP), was arrested by Nazis in 1934 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, where he died of an untreated ruptured appendix in 1944” (Wikipedia) because the guards couldn’t care less … and I imagine the pain and heartache that his father August went through at the time, loosing his eldest son.
I gaze at the faces of The Last People, the stare of an Inmate of an Asylum (1926-1930, printed c. 1990-1999) and the faces of Blind Children (c. 1930, printed c. 1990-1999) and wonder whether they were all killed as part of the Nazis euthanasia program (code-named Aktion T4) “which was a systematic campaign of mass murder that targeted institutionalised people with physical and intellectual disabilities in Germany and annexed territories (between 1939-1945).”4
A tear rolls down my cheek.
And then you think of the persecution of Sander himself, the destruction in 1936 of all the publishers copies of his first book Face of Our Time (Antlitz der Zeit), published in 1929, the destruction of the printing plates and the confiscation of his negatives – because the portrayal of all strata of German society did not fit with right wing eugenics and defied the regime’s rigid ideology of the “master race”.
Finally, I think of the courage of Sander to keep on photographing, to keep on recording his people of the 20th century no matter who they were, no matter the peril he was in. What else could he do? Give in to oppression? To survive the vicissitudes of the Second World War only then to loose 25,000 to 30,000 of his negatives, part of his life’s work, destroyed in an accidental basement fire in Cologne in 1946.
AND NOBODY SAYS ANY OF THIS.
But in his photographs we can see and feel how …
“The faces of those he photographed show traces of this collective historical experience.”
Through the generations.
~
As I observed in a 2013 paper Transgressive Topographies, Subversive Photographies, Cultural Policies, “Photography has always opened up to artists the possibility of offering the viewer images open to interpretation, where the constructed personal narratives of the viewer are mediated through mappings of identity, body and place that challenge how the viewer sees the world and the belief systems that sustain that view.”5
Thus, we are trans/fixed (trans, derived from Latin, “trans-” means to go across, beyond, or through) by the photographs of August Sander, for in understanding their history and their gestures (the hands of the blind children, the outstretched arm of the farmer sowing), their behaviour, social interactions, and psychological tension6 we may go beyond the here and now, transcending a belief system that sustains a limited world view, embracing identities that are constantly shifting and evolving. In this way, Sander’s photographs change human consciousness.
They undermine Volksgemeinschaft, a German term translating to “people’s community” or “national community”,7 a central ideological concept in Nazi Germany used to describe a supposedly classless, racially unified society where the interests of the individual were strictly subordinated to the needs of the nation … for within the archetype there is always the individual, choice, difference, freedom of expression, freedom to say no. Enough. No matter what the cost.
Through individual and archetype, gesture and pose, Sander’s art becomes impervious to time, a guiding light for generations.
1/ “The right saw the Burgfrieden as a sign of support for the authoritarian state while the left expected their sacrifices to be rewarded by social changes after the end of the war.”
6/ “Identity however is constantly evolving, shifting, and even fragmenting, while gesture signals shifts in human consciousness, behaviour, social interactions, and psychological tension.”
Associate Professor James McArdle. “Entwine,” on the On This Date in Photography website 15/06/2026 [Online] Cited 16/02/2026
7/ “A central concept in Nazi ideology, “Volksgemeinschaft” (community of the People) was the name given to the fictional notion of a classless community of all “racially pure” Germans as a unified people, supposedly bound together by blood and culture as well as common experiences and beliefs. The idea of the “Volksgemeinschaft” was intended to evoke a strong identification of the majority of Germans with the Nazi regime and to promote their sense of obedience. Central was the exclusion of certain groups, such as Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, political opponents and people persecuted for being “antisocial”. They were all labelled as “aliens to the community”. Many were arrested and deported to concentration or death camps.”
Many thankx to the Yale University Art Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. All photographs were printed by Gerd Sander (German, 1940-2021). Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. See Part 1 of the posting.
“The stark reminder that there was a person behind the lens, who suffered loss along with so many during that time, only makes People of the 20th Century more remarkable in its monumental intimacy. Each image is its own stunning portrait. Cumulatively, they have the power to leave the viewer in a daze, awestruck at the way someone with a clear eye and a loudly beating heart could show us how to connect with people from three generations ago…”
“Seen together, Sander’s images form a pictorial mosaic of inter-war Germany. Rapid social change and newfound freedom were accompanied by financial insecurity and social and political unrest. By photographing the citizens of the Weimar Republic – from the artistic, bohemian elite to the Nazis and those they persecuted – Sander’s photographs tell of an uncertain cultural landscape. It is a world characterized by explosions of creativity, hyperinflation and political turmoil. The faces of those he photographed show traces of this collective historical experience.
Marta Hegemann (14 February 1894 – 28 January 1970) was a German artist associated with the Dada movement and with the Cologne Progressives.
Cologne Progressives
The Cologne Progressives was an art movement and were an informal group of artists based in the Cologne and Düsseldorf area of Germany. They came together following the First World War and participated in the radical workers’ movement.
History
The group was founded by Gerd Arntz, Heinrich Hoerle and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert. The group related their attitude to art to their political activism. As Wieland Schmied put it, they “sought to combine constructivism and objectivity, geometry and object, the general and the particular, avant-garde conviction and political engagement, and which perhaps approximated most to the forward looking of New Objectivity […] “. They originated Figurative Constructivism.
Other artists and designers associated with this group include Wilhelm Kleinert, Marta Hegemann, Angelika Hoerle, Anton Räderscheidt, and Gottfried Brockmann. Many members had come from the Stupid (art movement).
Key concepts – Reversibility
This concept comes from their concern not merely to communicate social and political necessities, but also to ensure that their artworks could be turned toward the viewers sensible reality and become tenable as an argument. This is tied to their political commitment to proletarian culture in the specific context of the Rhineland during the tumults of the 1920s.
Max Ferdinand Scheler (German: [ˈʃeːlɐ]; 22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers, Scheler developed the philosophical method of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology.
The German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) is one of the most significant and influential photographers of the 20th century. This exhibition presents Sander’s ambitious and groundbreaking portrait series Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (People of the 20th Century) (1892-1954), a canonical work in the history of photography. The presentation – of over 600 prints from the series – represents the most comprehensive installation of his life’s work.
For this monumental archive of modern humanity, Sander photographed German citizens from all classes and backgrounds, organising them into categories such as “The Skilled Tradesman,” “The Farmer,” “The Artist,” and “The Woman.” Sander conceived of the project in the 1920s, during the Weimar Republic, but included in it photographs he had made as early as 1892. His portrayal of marginalised individuals, including people with disabilities and the unemployed, provided visibility to those often excluded from mainstream representations and drew the ire of the Nazis. Striking for their unflinching realism and skilful observations of character, his images reflect the changing social landscape of Germany in the first half of the 20th century.
Erich Sander (1903-1944) was the eldest son of Anna and August , an intellectual, political activist and member of the Resistance who was introduced to photography by his father, with whom he worked. In Cologne, with his comrade Ernst Ransenberg, he took over the leadership of the local section of the SAP party (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschland – Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany), writing and publishing leaflets against the Nazi party in power. In 1934, Erich was arrested and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for high treason. He worked as a photographer for the prison administration and managed to smuggle in a camera that enabled him to take portraits of himself and his fellow prisoners, whom he managed to smuggle out of the prison. He left a substantial correspondence with his family (some letters written in secret ink), which constitutes essential documentation on life in prison during National Socialism. …
Erich Sander did not live to see the end of the war. He died on 23 March 1944, after his severe abdominal pain was ignored for days by the prison authorities.
Marie-Édith Agostini. “Portraits of a Time by August and Erich Sander,” on the Wer Ist Walter? website Nd [Online] Cited 03/06/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
One of his fellow prisoners was Marcel Ancelin, born in Paris in 1923. A member of the Front National de Lutte pour la Libération et l’Indépendance de la France (National Front for the Fight for the Liberation and Independence of France) and later the FTP (Francs-Tireurs et Partisans), he was arrested by the French police on 13 August 1941. Handed over to the German authorities and sentenced to hard labour, he spent several years in camps and prisons in Germany, among them in Siegburg where he met Erich Sander. Ancelin was finally liberated from a camp near Frankfurt with other inmates by American troops in April 1945, and returned to France. On 8 November 1956, he received the official title of “deported resistance fighter”. Marcel Ancelin died in 2003, having never told his family or friends about his heroic past.
Erich Sander wrote of him in a letter to his parents: “One of the three (French men) has some very striking features, which is sure to give father some pleasure […] Very intelligent chap, by the way. He wants to come and visit me after the war.” However, Erich Sander did not live to see the end of the war. He died on 23 March 1944, after his severe abdominal pain was ignored for days by the prison authorities.
Marie-Édith Agostini. “Portraits of a Time by August and Erich Sander,” on the Wer Ist Walter? website Nd [Online] Cited 03/06/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
In the history of photography, few projects have proven as groundbreaking as People of the 20th Century. August Sander (1876-1964) developed his ambitious series over more than six decades, capturing the diverse social fabric of his home country of Germany during a period marked by cultural upheaval and change. A new exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery showcases over 600 prints from this landmark work, inviting viewers to experience the breadth and depth of Sander’s vision. Never before has his output received such comprehensive treatment in a museum display.
Sander undertook to photograph people from all walks of life and organise them into groups, whether by class, gender, profession, or other traits – resulting in a sociological archive of Germany in the first half of the 20th century. The installation at the Gallery draws its structure from the typology he established: The Farmer; The Skilled Tradesman; The Woman; Classes and Professions; The Artists; The City; and The Last People. Each of Sander’s portraits at once represents an individual and a social archetype, exploring the tension between public identity and personal uniqueness. As he explained, “The individual does not make the history of his time, but he both impresses himself on it and expresses its meaning.”
In one image, the photographer’s eldest son, Erich, poses with his fellow working college students. He appears again in a photograph taken surreptitiously while imprisoned for leftist activity. Such reoccurrences make clear that Sander’s categories are not as fixed as they may at first appear, with many individuals and motifs showing up across different classifications. Further challenging the project’s claim to offer a neat and neutral study of social types is the deeply personal character of some of the pictures. Indeed, People of the 20th Century incorporates intimate portraits of Sander’s family, including the poignant My Wife in Joy and Sorrow showing his wife, Anna, with their twin infants, one of whom did not survive.
Sander was steeped in the avant-garde movements of early 20th-century Germany as he cultivated a realistic style aimed at portraying life as it was, without romanticisation. Among these influences were the Cologne Progressives, a collective of artists deeply invested in labor activism, and the New Objectivity, which countered the era’s prevailing Expressionism with a manner of ostensible impartiality or resignation. This turn away from subjective expression in art shaped Sander’s approach to framing his subjects. He situated figures carefully within their environments such that their surroundings tell parts of their stories: as in the above-mentioned Political Prisoner, the individual becomes inextricable from the context.
Following the rise to power of the National Socialist party in 1933, Sander remained in Germany and faced professional constraints due to the nature and content of his artwork. Defying the representational mandates imposed by Nazi ideology, he photographed marginalised peoples – those with disabilities, the unemployed, and the persecuted. Even when an early version of the project was destroyed by the regime, Sander persisted, documenting the stories of those often overlooked by society. Through his lens, every subject was given dignity and importance, creating a stark contrast to the dehumanising rhetoric of this period.
Judy Ditner is the Richard Benson Curator of Photography and Digital Media
Hans Heinz Lüttgen (actually Theodor Heinrich Lüttgen; born 16. November 1895 (according to another source 1898) in Düsseldorf; died July 1976 in New York) was a German architect, interior designer and artist. According to his designs, the Sartory rooms and settlement buildings in Riehl were built in Cologne, as well as a series of single-family houses and villas in Wuppertal, which can be attributed to the style of the New Building of the 1920s and 1930s and now have “cult status”.
Hedwig Mankiewitz (also known as Hedwig Hausmann, 1893–1974) was a German painter and a vital, yet frequently under-appreciated, figure in the European avant-garde and Dada art movements. She is best known as the second wife, muse, and collaborator of the influential Dadaist Raoul Hausmann. Mankiewitz played a crucial role in providing emotional and financial support to Hausmann, especially during the tumultuous years when he was classified as a banned artist under the Nazi regime.
Vera Broïdo (7 September 1907 – 11 February 2004) was a Russian-born writer and a chronicler of the Russian Revolution, as one who grew up through it and lost her mother to its aftermath…
During her time in Berlin in the 1920s, Broido met avant garde artist and Dadaist turned society photographer Raoul Hausmann and became his lover and muse, living in a ménage à trois with him and his wife Hedwig in the fashionable Charlottenburg district of Berlin between 1928 and 1934.
Martha Dix (née Lindner; other married name Koch; July 19, 1895 – March 6, 1985) was a German goldsmith and silversmith who was the wife of the painter Otto Dix.
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (German; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz and Max Beckmann, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.
Martha Dix and the renowned German painter Otto Dix formed one of the most creatively documented couples of the Weimar era. She was a trained goldsmith and silversmith, and was her husband’s primary muse.
The twelve portraits in this series were taken by the German photographer August Sander in Cologne and nearby towns around 1938, at the height of Hitler’s power. Although Sander’s Jewish subjects were probably friends and neighbours, he labelled these photographs simply “Persecuted Jews.” It is possible that Sander, who was not Jewish, made the photographs to help desperate German Jews obtain exit papers. Sander himself had been a victim of Nazi persecution in 1934 when many of his plates were destroyed by the authorities and his eldest son was imprisoned for his antifascist activities.
A huge two-part posting on one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, an extravaganza of 77 photographs by August Sander (German, 1876-1964) from his magnum opus People of the 20th Century (Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts) (1892-1954) which consists of over 600 photographs organised into seven categories and 49 portfolios (see below).
There are many photographs I have never seen before in the two postings.
I have ordered the photographs in the postings by alphabetical title not by Sander’s classificatory system. It’s just much easier for me to make the postings this way (which takes many hours). As the text from the curator Judy Ditner makes clear, “Sander’s categories are not as fixed as they may at first appear, with many individuals and motifs showing up across different classifications.”
“What makes Sander’s work so powerful is the tension: each portrait is at once a deeply personal image and a window into a broader social type.”
Many thankx to the Yale University Art Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. All photographs were printed by Gerd Sander (German, 1940-2021). Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. See Part 2 of the posting.
“The individual does not make the history of his time, but he both impresses himself on it and expresses its meaning.”
This category serves as the foundation of his taxonomy, celebrating the “earthbound man” and rural life.
~ Portfolio of Archetypes ~ The Young Farmer ~ The Farmer’s Child and the Mother ~ The Farmer’s Family ~ The Farmer—His Life and Work ~ Farming Types
2/ The Skilled Tradesman
This volume highlights individuals in specialized professions and manual labor.
~ The Skilled Tradesman ~ The Apprentice / Journeyman ~ The Workshop and Factory ~ The Technician and Inventor
3/ The Woman
Dedicated to women in various life stages, social roles, and occupations.
~ The Woman ~ The Family ~ The Woman at Work ~ The Intellectual and Practical Occupation ~ The Elegant Woman
4/ Classes and Professions
This category spans the socio-economic hierarchy, from physical laborers to the political and business elite.
~ The Working Youth ~ The Soldier ~ The Student ~ The Scholar and Academic ~ The Clergy ~ The Jurist / Official ~ The Teacher and Educator ~ The Doctor and Pharmacist ~ The Artist (Performing Arts) ~ The Businessman ~ The Industrialist / Banker ~ The High Nobility
5. The Artists
This group focuses entirely on the creative and bohemians fields.
~ The Musician ~ The Poet ~ The Painter and Sculptor ~ The Architect
6. The City
An exploration of urban environments, public life, and various services or entertainment figures.
~ The City ~ The Representative of the City ~ The City Dweller ~ The Street Life ~ The Waiter / The Publican / The Cook ~ The Entertainer / The Showman ~ The Travel / The Circus / The Fairground ~ The Types and Originals ~ The Sportsman (Winter/Summer) ~ The Soldier ~ The Emigrant
7. The Last People
This poignant category focuses on the margins of society, specifically the themes of old age, sickness, and death.
~ Old Age ~ The Blind ~ The Sick ~ The Insane / Idiots ~ The Dying / The Dead
The German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) is one of the most significant and influential photographers of the 20th century. This exhibition presents Sander’s ambitious and groundbreaking portrait series Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (People of the 20th Century) (1892-1954), a canonical work in the history of photography. The presentation – of over 600 prints from the series – represents the most comprehensive installation of his life’s work.
For this monumental archive of modern humanity, Sander photographed German citizens from all classes and backgrounds, organising them into categories such as “The Skilled Tradesman,” “The Farmer,” “The Artist,” and “The Woman.” Sander conceived of the project in the 1920s, during the Weimar Republic, but included in it photographs he had made as early as 1892. His portrayal of marginalised individuals, including people with disabilities and the unemployed, provided visibility to those often excluded from mainstream representations and drew the ire of the Nazis. Striking for their unflinching realism and skilful observations of character, his images reflect the changing social landscape of Germany in the first half of the 20th century.
Text from the Yale University Art Gallery website
Installation views of the exhibition August Sander’s People of the 20th Century at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, February – June, 2026
The Westerwald (German pronunciation: [ˈvɛstɐvalt]; literally ‘Western forest’) is a low mountain range on the right bank of the river Rhine in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhenish Massif (Rheinisches Schiefergebirge or Rhenish Slate Mountains). Its highest elevation, at 657 m above sea level, is the Fuchskaute in the High Westerwald.
The Eifel (German: [ˈaɪfl̩]; Luxembourgish: Äifel, pronounced [ˈæːɪ̯fəl]) is a low mountain range in western Germany, eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Community of Belgium.
The Yale University Art Gallery announced August Sander’s People of the 20th Century, an ambitious exhibition showcasing the work of one of the most influential photographers of the modern era.
August Sander (1876-1964) devoted decades of his career to capturing and cataloguing the sociocultural spectrum of German life. In his groundbreaking series, Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (People of the 20th Century) (1892–1954), he attempted to create a comprehensive sociological archive by photographing individuals from various classes, occupations, and backgrounds and then arranging the images into archetypal groups and subgroups, such as “The Skilled Tradesman,” “The Farmer,” “The Artist,” and “The Woman.” The Gallery’s presentation retains his original organisational framework.
Taken in sum, Sander’s portraits show his keen observation of Germany’s shifting cultural landscape in the first half of the 20th century. The extensive project encompasses independent works, commissioned sittings, and scenes of family life. They reflect a diverse nation rooted in tradition yet transformed by war and increasing urbanisation. Each photograph presents not just a generalised type but an individual, highlighting the tension between social conformity and personal identity. Sander’s categories, while systematic, also reveal an inherent fluidity, as certain types and individuals appear across different groupings, challenging strict classification.
Heavily influenced by the Cologne Progressive and New Objectivity art movements, Sander adopted a representational style free from idealisation. His inclusion of marginalised groups, such as people with disabilities and the unemployed, asserted the value of each individual, subverting the exclusionary ideologies of National Socialism. In 1936 the Nazi regime destroyed an early version of his work. Undeterred, Sander continued to photograph throughout World War II, subsequently adding portfolios titled “Foreign Workers,” “The Persecuted” (depicting German Jews), and “Political Prisoners” (with images that his son Erich smuggled out of prison, where he was serving a 10-year sentence for anti-Nazi activities).
Although Sander produced tens of thousands of negatives for this project, the majority were destroyed during World War II and in a 1946 house fire. The gelatin silver prints in the exhibition were created from surviving original glass-plate negatives by Gerd Sander, the artist’s grandson, in the 1990s, guided by vintage prints and the artist’s extensive notes. These prints are recent acquisitions by the Yale University Art Gallery, made possible through the Société Anonyme Acquisition Fund and the Katharine Ordway Fund.
The exhibition comprises the full set of 619 prints, making it the most comprehensive museum presentation of Sander’s landmark project to date. By expanding the boundaries of portraiture into social commentary, exploring the concept of collective belonging, and experimenting with the artistic potential of the archive, Sander’s work remains remarkably resonant and impactful today.
Raoul Hausmann was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on the European Avant-Garde in the aftermath of World War I.
Further challenging the project’s claim to offer a neat and neutral study of social types is the deeply personal character of some of the pictures. Indeed, People of the 20th Century incorporates intimate portraits of Sander’s family, including the poignant My Wife in Joy and Sorrow showing his wife, Anna, with their twin infants, one of whom did not survive.
Judy Ditner is the Richard Benson Curator of Photography and Digital Media
Yale University Art Gallery Spring 2026 Magazine
Yale University Art Gallery 1111 Chapel Street (at York Street) New Haven, CT
Large format camera Front on, realist, sharply defined objective documentary photographs of architectural structures of the urban landscape In series
In reality:
Structures cut from the fabric of existence Isolated by the subjective eye of the photographer and the lens of the camera What to include or exclude
(In the contemporary photographs of the spaces in the posting, the shops are surrounded by trees and vegetation, they have transformed from kiosk to shuttered shop, from boutique to florist: the architecture remains but traces of previous incarnations are visible only in these photographs. Nothing is permanent except change).
In the photographs of kiosks, corner shops and industrial gates, it is the minutiae of existence (not as mere decoration) that gives these supposedly objective photographs their subjective power. For example, “the photo Trinkhalle, Köln-Nippes – with its ice cream and newspaper advertisements and vending machines for chewing gum and cigarettes” is more than amusing and engaging – it depicts vital, archaeological evidence of the transitory nature of human existence in the pyschogeography of the urbanscape.1
In Ronkholz’ photographs of the terrain (from the Latin terra, earth/land) of the city, her exploration of urban environments emphasises interpersonal connections to places – and testify “to social, cultural, and economic change and shows how people shape the world around them.” (Press release)
This is the fluid boundary that these photographs so beautifully and incisively depict: the interface between architecture and human, between order (form/surface) and chaos (placement of insolent signs), between utopian perfection and dystopian unruliness – the one coexistent with the other.
This confluence of pattern and randomness, objective and subjective, is what gives these photographs of the everyday a lasting significance.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Guy Debord (November 1956). “Theory of the Dérive”. Les Lèvres Nues (9). Translated by Ken Knabb.
Many thankx to Huis Marseille, Amsterdam for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Sankt-Franziskus-Straße 104-107 Düsseldorf
Installation views of the exhibition Designed World: Through the Eyes of Tata Ronkholz (1940-1997) at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, February – June, 2026
Installation views of the exhibition Designed World: Through the Eyes of Tata Ronkholz (1940-1997) at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, February – June, 2026
Installation view of the exhibition Designed World: Through the Eyes of Tata Ronkholz (1940-1997) at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, February – June, 2026 showing at left, Tata Ronkholz’s Düsseldorf Harbor (1980)
Tata Ronkholz was one of the first students in Bernd and Hilla Becher’s famous photography class at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Her fellow students included Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth, all of whom became artists of world renown. Oddly enough Tata Ronkholz’ work is only now receiving the same international acclaim. The retrospective Designed World: Through the Eyes of Tata Ronkholz (1940-1997), on show at Huis Marseille from 14 February until 21 June 2026, is the first large-scale tribute to this many-sided artist.
Objective-documentary photography
Tata Ronkholz was a photographer, product designer, and interior architect. Her photographic series lie within the tradition of objective, documentary photography, a tradition which was decisively shaped by the artist couple Bernd and Hilla Becher. Like theirs, Ronkholz’ work is characterised by clear compositions, a serial approach, and a documentary focus on architectural structures and everyday architectures. Using a large-format camera she produced sharply defined and realistic photographs in which the subject matter, rather than the individual style of the artist, takes centre stage. Her work is predominantly in black and white, although colour images also appear, demonstrating her ambition to engage with the artistic colour photography that emerged in Germany during the 1970s and ’80s, following the example set by the New Color Photography introduced by the American photographers Stephen Shore and William Eggleston.
Kiosks and corner shops
Tata Ronkholz became known for her appealing series of kiosks (Trinkhallen) and small shops that capture typical moments of urban everyday culture. These were photographed between 1977 and 1985, particularly in neighbourhoods of Cologne and Düsseldorf, in the Ruhr area, as well as in Leverkusen and Krefeld. For example, the photo Trinkhalle, Köln-Nippes – with its ice cream and newspaper advertisements and vending machines for chewing gum and cigarettes – is as amusing and engaging as Boutique, Köln-Mülheim in which, according to the store sign, alongside clothing records were also for sale. The photographs illustrate the extent to which product offerings, decoration, and advertising in public spaces has been transformed. Tata Ronkholz’ choice of subject means that her work indirectly testifies to social, cultural, and economic change and shows how people shape the world around them.
Industrial gates
Another significant series is dedicated to industrial gates, photographed between 1977 and 1985. The sober black-and-white images of these gates, with their grids and frameworks, offer glimpses into the interiors of industrial areas. In the photographs the gates function as interfaces between private and public space, between interior and exterior, and between activity and calm. Their aesthetic, reminiscent of abstract artworks, imbues the everyday with a new significance.
Collaboration with Thomas Struth
In 1979 Ronkholz, together with her fellow student Thomas Struth, began work on an impressive documentary series on Düsseldorf’s Rheinhafen. The project originated from the planned redevelopment of this historic harbour area – a site that, in its original form, was considered an industrial area of significant urban historical and architectural importance. Together they set out to document the harbour in its entirety, capturing its historic buildings, technical installations, and operational structures. In carefully composed images they recorded façades, interiors, silos, warehouses, crane structures, and harbour basins, before these elements partially disappeared or were fundamentally altered during the restructuring.
Tata Ronkholz as product designer
Between 1961 and 1965 Ronkholz studied at the Werkkunstschule Krefeld (an academy of applied art) with a focus on furniture design, and subsequently worked as a freelance designer until 1977. The exhibition also explores this aspect of Ronkholz’ oeuvre, including depictions of geometrically shaped furniture and lighting fixtures as well as designs for office and cafeteria furniture. Ronkholz’ designs are characterised by clear forms and functional elegance. Finally, the retrospective also presents early photographs of architectural forms created in 1975/76 in Italy and France, revealing her strong affinity for aspects of the ‘designed world’ across different areas of life.
Ronkholz’ estate, acquired in 2011 by VAN HAM Art Estate in Cologne, forms the basis of the exhibition alongside the holdings of Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf. Significant contributions have also been made from the in-house collections of Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – who also curated the exhibition – and through loans from private collections.
Book
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, Tata Ronkholz: Gestaltete Welt. Eine Retropektive (2025, Schirmer/Mosel Verlag GmbH), with texts in German and English. It is available from the Huis Marseille museum shop (€49.90).
Curator: Ann Shumard, Senior Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington
Mathew B. Brady (American, 1822-1896) John C. Calhoun 1849 Whole-plate daguerreotype Image/Sight: 20.2 x 15cm (7 15/16 x 5 7/8″) Mat (brass): 24.3 x 19.4cm (9 9/16 x 7 5/8″) Frame: 35 x 30 x 2.5cm (13 3/4 x 11 13/16 x 1″) Case closed: 5.8 x 34.3 x 39.7cm (2 5/16 x 13 1/2 x 15 5/8″) Case open: 5.8 x 72.7 x 39.7cm (2 5/16 x 28 5/8 x 15 5/8″) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Gift of Stephan Loewentheil
Mathew Brady’s mastery of the whole plate is on full display in this compelling portrait – the last daguerreotype made of Senator John C. Calhoun before his death in 1850. A contemporary praised the portrait as one of “the best which Mr. Brady has taken himself,” adding, “So perfect was it regarded by the family [of Calhoun], that several copies of it have been made at their request.” Commenting on his subject’s most notable feature, Brady observed, “Calhoun’s eye was startling, and almost hypnotised me.” A painting based on this daguerreotype was commissioned by Brady and now hangs in the U.S. Senate.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
High-class portraits
Eight white men (all whole-plate daguerreotypes) and one black woman (whole-plate tintype) – sounds about right.
“To put the era’s pricing in context, a year’s supply of coal for a working-class family in 1850 cost $15 – the minimum price for a Southworth & Hawes whole-plate daguerreotype. The whole plate was therefore too expensive for most consumers… A whole-plate tintype was likely priced from $.75 to $1 in the 1860s, when the average daily wage of a labourer was only $2.”
Picture and price / detail and scale / delicacy of lights and shadows / beauty of execution – execution being the operative word, considering the upcoming devastation of the American Civil War.
Thus, from unapologetic enslaver (Calhoun) who “staunchly defended chattel slavery and its expansion beyond the American South” and whose painting based on Brady’s daguerreotype hangs in the American senate (really!) – to an unidentified literate Black woman, birthplace unknown, born May 10, 1811 taken by an unknown photographer.
I know which one I would rather honour.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the National Portrait Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Competition prompted photographers such as Mathew Brady and Southworth & Hawes to produce advertisements that provided a wealth of detail about the services offered by their respective establishments … I am inclined to think that word of mouth may well have played a greater role in motivating patronage. In the case of Brady and Southworth & Hawes, the knowledge that these studios counted national celebrities among their clientele could have been a strong inducement for the general public to patronise them as well. …
While the National Portrait Gallery’s collection of early photography is substantial, it’s the rare whole-plate daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes that stand out for their detail and scale. This exhibition allows visitors to consider how new photographic processes impacted the quality and appeal of the medium … As an aside, the impetus for ‘From Shadow to Substance’ was the extraordinary gift to the museum in 2023 of Mathew Brady’s iconic whole-plate daguerreotype of the powerful antebellum senator John C. Calhoun. A subsequent review of other whole-plates in the Portrait Gallery’s collection sparked consideration of the format’s staying power as a top-of-the-line offering through the succession of early photographic processes. This is the story the exhibition seeks to illuminate.”
Ann Shumard, Senior Curator of Photographs quoted in Kate Garibaldi. “How Portrait Photography’s ‘Grand-Scale’ Origins Changed History,” on the Petapixel website Aug 01, 2025 [Online] Cited 26/02/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing Mathew B. Brady (American, 1822-1896) John C. Calhoun 1849 (above)
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing Francis D’Avignon (French, 1813 – c. 1871) Copy after Mathew B. Brady (American, 1823? – 15 Jan 1896) John Caldwell Calhoun, 18 Mar 1782 – 31 Mar 1850 1850
Francis D’Avignon (French, 1813 – c. 1871) Copy after Mathew B. Brady (American, 1822-1896) John Caldwell Calhoun, 18 Mar 1782 – 31 Mar 1850 1850 Lithograph on paper Sheet: 56.7 x 40.6cm (22 5/16 x 16″) Book:The Gallery of Illustrious Americans National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
During the first half of the nineteenth century, John C. Calhoun held sway as one of the nation’s most influential politicians. While serving as a senator from South Carolina (1832-1843; 1845-1850), he was unyielding in his advocacy for Southern interests. Under the banner of states’ rights, he supported the concept of nullification. This doctrine maintained that states had the authority to ignore federal laws by declaring them null and void. An unapologetic enslaver, Calhoun staunchly defended chattel slavery and its expansion beyond the American South. Though he died more than a decade before the Civil War began, his views were widely embraced in the Southern states. They ultimately provided justification for secession from the Union. Mathew Brady’s daguerreotype of Calhoun, on view nearby, is faithfully reproduced in this print. It is one of twelve lithographic portraits in a portfolio published by Brady and titled The Gallery of Illustrious Americans.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Installation views of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026
Photographers seeking customers during the medium’s early years often urged the public to “Secure the shadow, ere the substance fade.” Hinting at life’s fragility, this tagline underscored photography’s ability to capture a fleeting likeness and preserve it for posterity. Portraits in the impressive whole-plate format – measuring 8.5 x 6.5 inches – were among the premier offerings of the nation’s leading photographic studios.
Drawing on the National Portrait Gallery’s extensive early photography collection, this exhibition traces the evolution of the grand-scale, whole-plate format from the high-end daguerreotype to the mid-range ambrotype to the more affordable tintype. Examples of whole plates in each of these mediums illustrate how the format evolved as new photographic processes were introduced. Featured works include daguerreotypes representing U.S. senators Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, as well as papal nuncio Gaetano Bedini; an ambrotype portrait of American landscape artist John Frederick Kensett; and a tintype likeness of an unidentified African American woman.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing Southworth & Hawes’ Issac P. Davis 1771-1855 and William Hickling Prescott 1796-1859 c. 1850 (below)
Southworth & Hawes (active 1843-1862) Albert Sands Southworth (American, 1811-1894) Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, 1808-1901) Isaac P. Davis, 7 Oct 1771 – 13 Jan 1855 William Hickling Prescott, 4 May 1796 – 28 Jan 1859 c. 1850 Whole-plate daguerreotype Image/Sight: 20.3 x 15.2cm (8 × 6″) Mat (brass): 23.6 x 18.6cm (9 5/16 x 7 5/16″) Case open: 25.3 x 40.2 x 2.3cm (9 15/16 x 15 13/16 x 7/8″) Case closed: 25.3 x 20.7 x 3.5cm (9 15/16 x 8 1/8 x 1 3/8″) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Purchase funded by the photography acquisitions endowment established by the Joseph L. and Emily K. Gidwitz Memorial Foundation
Isaac P. Davis, 7 Oct 1771 – 13 Jan 1855 Born Plymouth, Massachusetts
William Hickling Prescott, 4 May 1796 – 28 Jan 1859 Born Salem, Massachusetts
This portrait depicts two prominent Bostonians who enjoyed considerable success in their respective careers and were also known for their philanthropy. Isaac P. Davis (left) amassed a sizeable fortune in manufacturing and real estate. An original member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, which Paul Revere helped found, he was also a patron of American artists, including Gilbert Stuart. Historian William H. Prescott (right) first earned international acclaim for his three-volume History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (1838). Blind in one eye and with low vision in the other, Prescott was a generous supporter of Boston’s Perkins Institute for the Blind.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 Southworth & Hawes’ Lemuel Shaw 1787-1861 c. 1851 (below)
Southworth & Hawes (active 1843-1862) Albert Sands Southworth (American, 1811-1894) Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, 1808-1901) Lemuel Shaw, 9 Jan 1781 – 30 Mar 1861 c. 1851 Whole-plate daguerreotype with silver-plated copper sheet support Plate (sight): 21.5 x 16cm (8 7/16 x 6 5/16″) Case Open: 23.4 x 36.3 x 0.9cm (9 3/16 x 14 5/16 x 3/8″) Case Closed: 23.4 x 18.2 x 1.8cm (9 3/16 x 7 3/16 x 11/16″) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Conservation made possible by a grant from the Smithsonian’s Collections Care and Preservation Fund
Lemuel Shaw, 9 Jan 1781 – 30 Mar 1861 Born Barnstable, Massachusetts
The impact of rulings by Lemuel Shaw, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court (1830-1860), extended well beyond the borders of his home state. Particularly in cases affecting business and industry, his decisions influenced commercial law interpretation in courts throughout the nation. He also rendered judgments in key cases concerning the fate of those who had escaped from their enslavers. Though personally opposed to slavery, Shaw believed it was “too deeply interwoven in the texture of society to be wholly or speedily eradicated.” In 1851, he issued the principal opinion supporting the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing showing Southworth & Hawes’ Jonas Chickering 1853 (below)
Southworth & Hawes (active 1843-1862) Albert Sands Southworth (American, 1811-1894) Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, 1808-1901) Jonas Chickering, 5 Apr 1798 – 8 Dec 1853 1853 Whole-plate daguerreotype Image: 20 x 15cm (7 7/8 x 5 7/8″) Frame: 31.1 x 25.7 x 2.5cm (12 1/4 x 10 1/8 x 1″) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Jonas Chickering, 5 Apr 1798 – 8 Dec 1853 Born Mason Village, New Hampshire
“The father of American piano making,” Jonas Chickering advanced the development of a one-piece, cast-iron frame that revolutionised piano construction. The result was an instrument that could withstand the tension exerted by its strings and resist extremes in temperature and humidity that impacted its ability to remain in tune. Chickering’s patented innovations also yielded pianos of greater volume and superior resonance. Honoured at the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition in London, his pianos became the instruments of choice in U.S. and international concert halls.
When he posed for this portrait by Boston’s premier daguerreotypists, Chickering was at the zenith of his career.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing Mathew B. Brady’s John Frederick Kensett 1816-1872 c. 1856 (below)
Mathew B. Brady (American, 1822-1896) John Frederick Kensett, 22 Mar 1816 – 15 Dec 1872 c. 1856 Whole-plate ambrotype Image: 18.4 x 13.2cm (7 1/4 x 5 3/16″) Case Open: 23 x 36.4cm (9 1/16 x 14 5/16″) Case Closed: 23 x 18.4cm (9 1/16 x 7 1/4″) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
John Frederick Kensett, 22 Mar 1816 – 15 Dec 1872 Born Cheshire, Connecticut
In a newspaper advertisement that was published on September 29, 1855, photographer Mathew Brady announced he was now offering “AMBROTYPES – a New Style of Picture on Glass, more durable and perfect than any known method of portraiture.”
Brady’s ambrotype represents artist and engraver John Frederick Kensett, one of the most popular members of the Hudson River School’s second generation of American landscape painters. Kensett was admired for his keen observations of nature, refined compositions, and sensitive rendering of light. A member of the prestigious National Academy, he helped found New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
National Portrait Gallery Presents “From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years”
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will present “From Shadow to Substance: Grand Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years” June 20 through June 7, 2026. Drawing from the museum’s extensive early photography collection, this exhibition traces the evolution of the grand scale, whole-plate portrait format from the high-end daguerreotype and mid-range ambrotype to the more affordable tintype. The exhibition is curated by Senior Curator of Photographs Ann Shumard.
Photographers seeking customers during the medium’s early years, from 1840 to 1860, often urged the public to “Secure the shadow ere the substance fade.” Hinting at life’s fragility, this tagline underscored photography’s ability to capture a fleeting likeness and preserve it for posterity. Portraits in the impressive whole-plate format – measuring 8 1/2 by 6 1/2 inches – were among the premier offerings of the nation’s leading photographic studios.
“This exhibition marks the first time these whole-plate daguerreotype, ambrotype and tintype portraits will be shown together at the Portrait Gallery,” Shumard said. Examples of whole plates in each of these mediums illustrate how the format evolved as new photographic processes were introduced. Featured works include daguerreotypes representing U.S. Senators Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, an ambrotype portrait of American landscape artist John Frederick Kensett and a tintype likeness of an unidentified African American woman. Also included are original advertisements issued by photographers Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes, and Mathew B. Brady to promote their respective businesses. The exhibition will be presented in the Early Photography Alcove on the museum’s first floor.
Press release from the National Portrait Gallery
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing at left, Southworth & Hawes’ Daniel Webster 1782-1852 c. 1845; and at right, Unidentified photographer Daniel Webster 1782-1852 c. 1850
Southworth & Hawes (active 1843-1862) Albert Sands Southworth (American, 1811-1894) Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, 1808-1901) Daniel Webster 1782-1852 c. 1845 Whole plate copy daguerreotype National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Conservation made possible by a grant from the Smithsonian’s Collections Care and Preservation Fund
Daniel Webster 1782-1852 Born Salisbury, New Hampshire
Daniel Webster emerged as a major force in national politics at a time when rising sectionalism threatened to split the country apart. During his service in the House (1823-1827) and Senate (1827-1841; 1845-1850), Webster’s brilliant orations in defence of the Union marked him as one of the great public figures of his generation.
Boston-based photographers Southworth & Hawes excelled in creating whole-plate daguerreotypes of unrivalled quality. Consequently, their studio attracted numerous prominent figures, including Webster. Their majestic Webster portrait was so popular that it may have inspired them to produce this daguerreotype, a copy of the original.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Unidentified photographer Daniel Webster 1782-1852 c. 1850 Sixth-plate daguerreotype National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
A sixth-plate daguerreotype such as this portrait of Daniel Webster, would have sold for a fraction of the cost of a whole plate. To put the era’s pricing in context, a year’s supply of coal for a working-class family in 1850 cost $15 – the minimum price for a Southworth & Hawes whole-plate daguerreotype. The whole plate was therefore too expensive for most consumers.
Retailing for about $3, a sixth-plate was a more affordable option. There were tradeoffs, however. While the whole plate allowed for a dramatic, standing view of Webster, the Sith-plate accommodated only a bust-length image.
In a period when American federalism faced increasing challenges from states’-rights supporters, Daniel Webster emerged as one of the Union’s most eloquent defenders. Having gained acclaim as a lawyer who argued some of the young republic’s pivotal Supreme Court cases, Webster became a major force in national politics through his service in the House and in the Senate. There, his brilliant orations on behalf of the indivisibility of the Union marked him as one of the greatest public figures of his generation. Despite his national stature, Webster fell short of mustering the broad support that might have won him the presidency.
This daguerreotype represents Webster around the time of his controversial endorsement of the Compromise of 1850. In supporting the measure, Webster sought to preserve the Union through concession and compromise but succeeded principally in incurring the wrath of his northern constituents, who abhorred the legislation’s Fugitive Slave Act. Although attacks from his critics left Webster shaken and burdened by “the crushing weight of anxiety and responsibility,” he soldiered on until a liver ailment claimed his life in October 1852. The evergreen sprig preserved with this daguerreotype serves as a reminder of Webster’s endurance as a symbol and an icon in American history.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing a wood engraving by an unidentified artist of Southworth & Hawes’ Daguerreotype Rooms c. 1849 (below)
Unidentified Artist Southworth & Hawes’ Daguerreotype Rooms c. 1849 Wood engraving 20 x 12.7cm (7 7/8 x 5″) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Gift of an anonymous donor in honour of Carlos G. Vertanssian
In 1843, photographer Albert Sands Southworth (1811-1894) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808-1901) formed a creative partnership that yielded daguerreotypes unrivalled for their artistry and technical achievement. Committed to the highest standards, the duo excelled in producing beautiful composed, evocative portraits, particularly in the large (8 1/2 x 6 1/2 in.) and technically demanding whole-plate format.
In this advertisement for their Boston studio, Southworth & Hawes offered potential customers the assurance: ‘In style of execution and picturesque effect – in boldness of character and beauty of expression – in variety of size and delicacy of lights and shadows, we shall aim at the highest perfection’.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Southworth & Hawes (active 1843-1862) Albert Sands Southworth (American, 1811-1894) Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, 1808-1901) Gaetano Bedini, 1806-1864 1853 Whole-plate daguerreotype Image: 20 x 15cm (7 7/8 x 5 7/8″) Case Open: 25.4 x 40.8 x 1cm (10 x 16 1/16 x 3/8″) Case Closed: 23.1 x 18.1 x 1.7cm (9 1/8 x 7 1/8 x 11/16″) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Conservation made possible by a grant from the Smithsonian’s Collections Care and Preservation Fund
Gaetano Bedini, 1806-1864 Born Sinigaglia, Italy
In 1853, Italian archbishop Gaetano Bedini travelled to the United States at the request of Pope Pius IX to assess the condition of the Catholic Church in North America and to study the possibility of establishing a papal mission in Washington, D.C. Bedini’s multi-month, fact-finding tour coincided with an intense wave of anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant feeling fanned by the newly ascendant American (or Know-Nothing) Party. In several cities, his presence sparked hostile demonstrations. Upon returning to the Vatican, Bedini advocated successfully for the creation of a North American College in Rome to prepare Roman Catholic clergy for service in the United States.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing a wood engraving by an unidentified artist of Brady’s Daguerreotypes 1854 (below)
Unidentified Artist Brady’s Daguerreotypes 1854 Wood engraving on paper Image: 21.8 x 14.8cm (8 9/16 x 5 13/16″) Sheet: 24 x 18.6cm (9 7/16 x 7 5/16″) Mat: 45.8 x 35.6cm (18 1/16 x 14″) Published in the Illustrated American Biography, 1854 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Gift of George S. Whiteley IV
Mathew Brady placed this full-page advertisement in the Illustrated American Biography, a publication that marketed itself as a biographical volume but was actually a glorified business directory. With its cutaway image of a camera, Brady’s ad presents a fanciful view of the process by which sunlight passes through the camera’s lens to produce an image.
In 1851, Mathew Brady submitted forty-eight daguerreotypes to the “Great Exhibition,” the vast international fair organised by Britain’s Prince Albert at the Crystal Palace in London. A critic for the London Illustrated News noted, “The likenesses of various distinguished Americans by Mr. Brady are notable examples of this style of art.” It is reasonable to assume that whole-plate portraits were among the works Brady exhibited. When jurors pronounced his daguerreotypes “excellent for beauty of execution,” he proudly claimed one of the fair’s highly coveted medals.
Well aware of the marketing value of his prize, Brady touted it in full-page advertisements, such as this example. Presenting a cutaway image of a camera’s interior, the ad offers a fanciful view of the way in which sunlight, represented by an allegorical figure, passes through the lens to produce an image.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
Installation view of the exhibition From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, June 20, 2025 – June 7, 2026 showing a whole-plate tintype by an unidentified photographer of an Unidentified Woman c. 1865 (below)
Unidentified photographer Unidentified Woman c. 1865 Whole-plate tintype Image/Sheet: 21.6 x 15.2 cm (8 1/2 x 6″) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Unidentified Woman Birthplace unknown
A penciled note attached to the back of this tintype reads simply, “Born May 10 1811.” Regrettably, the woman pictured is not otherwise identified. However, her handsome dress, her gold-accented jewelry, the book on the table beside her, and the slim volume in her hands suggest she was a literate woman who could afford a top-of-the-line tintype.
This portrait’s large scale and studio setting distinguish it from the small, inexpensive tintypes commonly produced by itinerant photographers. A whole-plate tintype such as this was likely priced from $.75 to $1 in the 1860s, when the average daily wage of a labourer was only $2.
Text from the National Portrait Gallery website
National Portrait Gallery 8th and F Sts NW Washington, DC 20001
“Through his surreal, dream sequences captured in pop colour, punctum laden reality, Parr observed the absurdities of life on this planet…” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 30th January – 24th May, 2026
Curators: Quentin Bajac, in collaboration with Martin Parr and Clémentine de la Féronnière
“We are living in a time when, to borrow a phrase and book title of Sigmund Freud’s, civilization and its discontents are becoming painfully evident to us all. Our machine age technology with its private greed, ecologically disastrous policies, crass materialism, human alienation, incessant strife and conflict, and the portent of man’s destroying himself by his own recklessness, is taking its toll in terms of our confidence and optimism about life. …
John Anson Warner. “Introduction” to The Life & Art of the North American Indian. London: Hamlyn, 1975, p. 6.
A bewitching eye / the unfolding moment
A bewitching eye refers to eyes that are so powerfully, seductively attractive or charming that they appear to cast a spell, mesmerising or enchanting an onlooker. They possess an irresistible, magnetic allure that captivates the viewer, having an almost magical ability to draw someone in. This description could metaphorically be applied to the photographs of the legendary (and I don’t use that word lightly) contemporary British photographer Martin Parr (1952-2025).
Parr was an observer of life with a socially critical eye. Through his surreal, dream sequences captured in pop colour, punctum laden reality, Parr observed the absurdities of life on this planet – human, animal, inanimate – with curiosity and a sense of wonder even while questioning our path to destruction. While this exhibition is split into various sections – Leisure & waste lands; Last Chance To Buy; Small World; The Animal Kingdom; and Technological Addictions – in reality most of his images from each of the sections could fit into any other, for the whole world is interconnected in the excesses and grotesqueness of modern life, of civilization and its discontents.
Parr’s exploration of the pyschogeography of the urbanscape, the exploration of urban environments that emphasises interpersonal connections to places, is damming in its technicolor coat of glory. Mass tourism takes us to leisure spaces like the beach where technology is used to take selfies and mountains of waste pile up near the water’s edge. Mass human, mass cultivation (of palm oil or eucalyptus trees for example) is causing mass extinction of species across the planet. Mass consumption means that we are using the Earth’s resources indiscriminately to fuel (ha!) our desire for the latest, larger four-wheel drive we can get our hands on, the latest fashions that end up in landfill every 6 month cycle when they are not bought, or the brightest, pinkest, must luscious cup cakes you have ever seen in your life.
Parr’s colour saturated photos draw us into this consumptive world where the body is racked by disease, where the patient will soon be on life support. Through his mesmerising, enchanting, multilicious photographs he pokes a great big subversive stick at our follies, excesses, self-destructive desires. Unfortunately, while Parr’s photos seep into our subconscious, most images have little power to change public and personal opinion – all they can do is proffer alternate visions and interpretations of the world and hope that some glimmer of recognition of the environmental damage we are doing will permeate the mind of the viewer.
Of course, Parr’s famous photographs did not appear out of thin air. He was a dedicated photographer whose art practice required years of hard work, talent and skill to obtain his images. He emphasises that, “you have to look at the history of photography and learn what they have done and achieved and apply that, think about it and have it in the back of your head and then you can apply that to your own work.” By doing that, “you may have the rare opportunity actually to develop your own voice, and you can become a photographer with a particular voice.”
“What you are going to do, of course, is to find a good connection to the world out there. It is the quality of that connection that is really important. So, you find a subject you feel strongly about. Then work out how to articulate that and that hopefully will give you momentum for you to get good work.”
Nothing comes without hard work and perseverance.
In the video below where he is giving advice to young photographers he states that he might get only ten great photographs a year, sometimes only one, but he shoots heap of photographs and then discards the dross. What he also says that is really important is that he is attentive to the unfolding moment, he is aware and ready for what the energy of the world puts in front of his eye and his camera. If only the human race was so aware.
Parr was a human being that I would have really liked to have met. To have a conversation about the energy of the world, the passion and commitment of human beings to do good things, to see things differently, to make a difference.
We have his images for as long as the human race exists. But I miss him already.
Many thankx to Jeu de Paume for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“l’m creating entertainment, which has a serious message if you want to read into it, but I’m not trying to convince anyone – l’m just showing them what they think they may know already.”
Martin Parr, 2021
“We are heading towards catastrophe but we are all going there together. Who would dare ban cars or air travel?”
“When I take a photograph, I try to say something. Beyond the garish colours, there is a political message…”
Martin Parr
I now realise that almost all the images I have taken and produced are indirectly linked to climate change.”
Martin Parr 2009
“Global Warning gives us Parr in all his gluttonous, giddy glory, an attentive, unabashed and unpretentious observer of everyday absurdities. But through clever curatorial nudges, this show also gives us other unexpected sides to Parr, a creeping sense of a doom we are hurtling towards at breakneck speed.”
Martin Parr’s Advice to Young Photographers | Louisiana Channel
“You are probably going to fail, so unless you are obsessed, almost like a disease, you are not going to make it.” Legendary Martin Parr, regarded as the most crucial figure in contemporary British photography, offers advice to young photographers.
“What you are going to do, of course, is to find a good connection to the world out there. It is the quality of that connection that is really important. So, you find a subject you feel strongly about. Then work out how to articulate that and that hopefully will give you momentum for you to get good work.”
Another thing which is very important for Martin Parr to emphasise is that “you have to look at the history of photography and learn what they have done and achieved and apply that, think about it and have it in the back of your head and then you can apply that to your own work.” By doing that, “you may have the rare opportunity actually to develop your own voice, and you can become a photographer with a particular voice.”
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2022
This exhibition revisits the work of the late British photographer Martin Parr, bringing together a selection of series produced since the 1970s that find new resonance in light of the growing disarray of the contemporary world. For over fifty years, Parr travelled the globe not as an activist but as a relentless and amused observer, offering a lucid and unsparing portrait of global imbalances and the excesses of contemporary life: the grotesque face and damaging effects of mass tourism, the rise of car culture, our dependence on technology, unbridled consumerism, and our ambivalent relationship with other living beings.
Through his characteristically offbeat vision, Parr also indirectly engaged with the human behaviours driving contemporary climate change: the unrestrained use of transport, reliance on fossil fuels, global overconsumption, and environ mental degradation. Over time, and as social attitudes have shifted, what once appeared merely entertaining has revealed itself to be increasingly serious. ln retrospect, Parr’s corrosive irony places him within a long tradition of British satire: his sharp wit and deadpan humour deliver a critical, and at times merciless, view of the world we inhabit.
Text from the Jeu de Paume website
The Martin Parr: Global Warning exhibition at the Jeu de Paume (on display through May 2026) is organised into five thematic sections. These sections explore the excesses of modern life through about 180 photographs.
Leisure & waste lands: Focuses on recreational spaces like crowded beaches where pleasure often leads to environmental degradation.
Last Chance To Buy: Examines unbridled consumerism in supermarkets, malls, and luxury shops using Parr’s signature saturated colours.
Small World: Documents the rituals and “ravages” of mass tourism across five continents.
The Animal Kingdom: Explores our ambivalent relationship with animals – as pets, entertainment, or consumer products.
Technological Addictions: Highlights our growing dependence on machines, from slot machines to compulsive selfie-taking
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing Martin Parr’s black and white photographs of Ireland 1980-83 Photos: Salim Santa Lucia
Ireland 1980-1983
While living in Ireland, Martin Parr became interested in the abandoned morris Minors – the emblematic car of the post-war British middle classes – found throughout the Irish countryside. Through his lens, the vehicles become a new motif of contemporary ruin: modern vanities symbolising the inevitable decline of progress, a subtle criticism of pollution linked to the automotive industry, an homage to the beauty of Irish landscapes, an almost optimistic meditation on the resilience of nature, and a celebration of human ingenuity. In this sense, the series offers an implicit history of both pollution and adaptation.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left the wall text “Leisure & Waste Lands” and at centre, Martin Parr’s Mar del Plata, Argentina (2014, below)
Leisure & Waste Lands
Beginning in the 1980s, Martin Parr relentlessly documented how contemporary landscapes are periodically or permanently reshaped by the expansion of mass leisure. Many of these works capture the coexistence and constant intermingling of natural and man-made elements.
Parr’s photography explores the interests of ordinary people, with whom he identified. Although he never learned to swim – unlike his wife Susie, who is an excellent swimmer – he spent a great deal of time on beaches, which feature prominently in his work. His first major colour series, ‘The Last Resort’, focuses on the popular seaside resort, New Brighton, near Liverpool. Parr would go on to pursue this theme across all five continents, producing some of his most incisive social critiques, from ‘Benidorm’ – capturing life at a sprawling resort on Spain’s Costa Blanca – to ‘Playas’ – a survey of Latin America’s most frequented beaches.
‘You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviour can be found,’ he wrote in 2013. For Parr, the beach setting became a field of experimentation, rarely appearing in his work as exotic or pristine, but instead as spaces rife with the contradictions of the leisure industry. At once convivial and chaotic, beaches are places of relaxation, paradoxically crowded with bodies, colours and – on might even say – noise. They are sites where we reproduce our ordinary urban habits, and where consumerism is inextricably bound up with trash and waste in every imaginable form: a highly photogenic subject that Parr faithfully captured from the very beginning of his career.
‘I first came to Mar del Plata, the largest Argentine seaside resort, way back in 2007 when I was shooting images for my ‘Playas’ project, a survey of Latin American beaches. I was amazed then at the scale of the resort. It has two thousand hotels, sixteen kilometres of beaches, and welcomes over seven million visitors a year. In terms of scale, Mar del Plata dwarfs other well-known resorts across the globe, including Copacabana, Blackpool and benidorm, yet it is virtually unknown beyond Argentina.’
From Martin parr’s blog, Mar del Pata, 2004 Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below); and at second left, Benidorm, Spain (1997)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Tokyo, Japan (2000, below); at second left, Melbourne, Australia (2008); and at right, New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photograph New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below); at at right, Mar del Plata, Argentina (2014)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at right, Martin Parr’s photograph Untitled (Hot Dog Stand), United Kingdom (1983-85, below) from Last Resort
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing from left to right, Benidorm, Spain (1997); Magaluf, Majorca, Spain (2003); Benidorm, Spain (1997); and at right, Tenby, United Kingdom (2018)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Benidorm, Spain (1997, below) and at right, Tenby, United Kingdom (2018)
This exhibition invites the public to revisit the work of Martin Parr. Through different bodies of work created from the late 1970s to the present day, Parr’s photographs capture the absurdities and malfunctions of our contemporary world. Over 50 years, in locations all round the globe, the photographer has built up a corpus of work that portrays the inequalities and excesses of our modern lifestyle. A number of themes recur throughout. These include: the ravages of tourism, the prevalence of car culture, our dependence on technology, consumer excess, and even our ambivalent relationship with the living world. Martin Parr brings his unique, off-beat perspective to several major causes of climate change and environmental damage: unchecked global travel, reliance on fossil fuels, and world-wide overconsumption. Seemingly light-hearted and humorous, Parr’s work is in fact deeply serious. The ironical nature of his work places Parr firmly within the traditions of British satire and offers an indirect yet profound critique of contemporary life.
Through some 180 images spanning fifty years of work – from his early black and white images to more recent output – this exhibition addresses the chaos of modern society. Five main sections, organised according to recurring themes, motifs and obsessions, convey the range and depth of Parr’s work. These sections explore the way in which our leisure pursuits impact the environment. Despite being a non-swimmer, Parr is repeatedly drawn to the beach as a site where the natural and artificial worlds coexist and pleasure leads to waste. In the section ‘Everything Must Go!’ our obsessive consumerism is explored. Parr draws up a crude inventory of sought-after objects and modes of consumption. Supermarkets, shopping malls, fairs and exhibitions provide the setting for a frantic materialistic race that is common to all classes of society. Sometimes even human beings become a form of merchandise.
In the ‘Small World’ section, named after one of his most celebrated series, Parr explores the joys, contradictions and dead ends of the tourism industry. In some of the world’s most iconic destinations, he focuses on the habits, behaviours, expectations and disappointments of the global tourist, against the backdrop of North/South, West/East imbalances. In ‘The Animal Kingdom’ he looks at the ambiguous relationship between humans and animals, from fascination and indulgence to neglect and exploitation. The final section – ‘Technological Addictions’ addresses our relationship with machines of all kinds: phones, cars, planes and computers as through them we navigate space, time and reality on a daily basis.
I create entertainment that contains a serious message if you are willing to look for it, but I’m not trying to convince anyone, I’m simply showing people what they think they know’ declared Martin Parr in 2021. Tireless photographer, frequent flyer, beach-lover, Martin Parr never tries to be a moral authority. He has often acknowledged that he himself is fully part of the world he documents and is clear-sighted about the environmental impact of his own lifestyle, particularly his significant carbon footprint: ‘We are heading towards catastrophe but we are all going there together. Who would dare ban cars or air travel?’
Aware that images alone are not enough to change the world, he advocates a form of discreet activism, a subtle visual guerilla warfare. If Parr uses humour it is always in the service of a commentary, often critical and satirical, that seeks to de-stabilise the idealised visions conveyed in the media by the cultural and tourism industries. Many of his images play with cliches, highlighting their inherent absurdity in order to subvert and deconstruct them. Tourist postcards, wildlife photography, foodie habits, selfies, all these and more provide the material that enables him to question, critique and occasionally mock the lifestyles and imagination of large sections of the world population. This exhibition is indeed a global warning.
Press release from Jeu de Paume
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Moscow (1992) ; and at right, the wall text to “Last chance to buy”
Last chance to buy
Beginning in the 1980s, Martin Parr began documenting a subject that relatively few photographers were exploring at the time: the myriad dimensions of consumer culture in Britain under Margaret Thatcher, and in particular the tastes, aspirations and attitudes of the middle class. Parr would sustain this interest throughout his career, later extending his investigation across Europe and the United Sates as well as to countries in Asia and the Middle East shaped by Westernised or Americanised lifestyles.
Today, Parr’s work offers a blunt and often humorous inventory of our consumer goods and ways of life – from food and art to luxury items and useless trinkets – framing consumption as a kind of new religion. In several series, parr deliberately subverted the visual vocabulary of advertising photography. In ‘Common Sense’, one of his most incisive critiques of consumer culture, close-ups and saturated colours produce a grotesque caricature of a world dominated by kitsch. Through his lens, supermarkets, hypermarkets, shopping malls, fairs, and trade shows become stages on which all social classes take part in a frenzied and absurd rush to accumulate goods of every kind. In this world, which seems ultimately to offer little pleasure, human beings themselves are at times turned into commodities.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at centre, photographs from Martin Parr’s series Common Sense (1999)
Installation views of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing photographs from Martin Parr’s series Common Sense (1999, below)
In his playfully titled Common sense series, British photographer Martin Parr confronts and amuses us in a similar way. Each image in the series is an isolated detail revealing one ghastly aspect of excessive consumerism and consumption after another. The images jostle for our attention like billboards on the side of a freeway, employing many of the tactics of advertising, using large-scale, saturated colour and shock value to attract our gaze.
In his photographs of food, Martin Parr pointedly examines the gross indulgence that is encouraged by manufacturers and their advertisers. Shown here as just another commodity, generic and mass-produced food becomes obscene in its abundance…. When seen in such lurid detail, the overblown details on the person’s hands, such as the ring with blue stone, a Band-Aid, and the imperfect application of the gaudy nail polish, become repulsive images of the ordinary. …
The Common sense series is a major body of work within Parr’s ongoing exploration of globalisation, mass tourism, class culture and consumerism. In common with much of his work, this series presents images critical of the contemporary culture with a distinctive sense of irony and British humour. There is something uncomfortable in all these photographs. We laugh at them while being slightly embarrassed by their familiarity and are acutely aware of the gulf between a dream of glamour and the sad synthetic reality.
Susan van Wyk, Curator, Photography, National Gallery of Victoria
Susan van Wyk. “Martin Parr’s Common Sense,” in Art Journal 46, 29 Jan 14 on the National Gallery of Victoria website [Online] Cited 16/04/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Cozumel, Mexico (2002, below); and at right, the wall text for “Small World”
Small World
Martin Parr maintained that he belonged fully to the world he documented and critiqued. He readily acknowledged the environmental impact of his own lifestyle – not least his substantial carbon footprint – and near positioned himself above his subjects. Although fully aware that images alone could never change the world, he nevertheless engaged in a form of subtle, visual guerrilla warfare that questioned dominant representations, particularly those promoted by the tourism industry.
Beginning in the 1990s, tourism emerged as one of his favourite subjects. He would explore it the world over, in all its pleasures, contradictions, and even dead ends, documenting the rituals and behaviours of the global tourist in the world’s most visited destinations. The sameness of gestures, attitudes and clothing encountered in every corner of the planet provides a humorous, slightly wistful counterpoint to the diversity of the sites and monuments photographed. Parr takes particular pleasure in overturning the codes of postcard perfect aesthetics, especially in his images of iconic landmarks, which he presents in degraded forms caught between over crowding, scenes of anxiety, and crude replicas. Through his lens, the quest for authenticity is a thing of the past.
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing Parr’s photograph Cannes, France (2018, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photograph Sorrento, Italy (2014, below); and at right, The Matterhorn, Alps, Switzerland (1990)
‘Between the hours of 10am and 2pm the site is at its busiest with up to 4,000 visitors arriving each day. Knowing how inaccessible the place is, it is staggering where and how they emerge. It is also not a cheap visit as each foreign tourist has to pay 122 soies (roughly $40) to enter the site. I am convinced that this entrance payment, together with the cost of the journey and the trekking are probably keeping the Peruvian economy afloat, as 70% of all visitors are foreigners.’
From Martin Parr’s blog, Machu Picchu, 2008 Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at bottom left, Martin Parr’s photograph Notre Dame, Paris, France (2012, below); and at right, Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland (1994, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s West Midlands Safari Park, United Kingdom (1990); and at right, Longleat Safari Park, United Kingdom (1994)
Unlike zoos, safari parks are designed to let animals roam freely, almost as if they were “in the wild”, while human visitors are meant to experience a sense of closeness to the animals natural state. In his images of safari parks, Martin Parr mocks this idea by deliberately including exactly what such photographs usually try to exclude: cars. The resulting images resemble absurd collages of two disjointed realities, in which – in typical Par-like fashion – he plays with the incongruous encounter between the natural world and a human-made, artificial dimension
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at second left, Martin Parr’s photograph Snow Polo World Cup, St Moritz, Switzerland (2011, below) from the series Luxury; and at second right, Venice Beach, California, USA (1998, below)
“I am not saying that tourism is bad – far from it as it brings a livelihood for many people. Organisations like Tourism Concern in the UK make a very important contribution to a better understanding of the yin and yang of tourism. This charity highlights the problems caused by tourism – from water shortages in newly developed sites to the pure rape of our ever decreasing natural habitats – and tries to ensure that local people benefit from the fruits of tourism. We need to adopt a better understanding of the issues surrounding this huge business. These photographs, I hope, will offer a good starting point. For remember we, in the wealthy West, are the ones that seek out the pleasures of tourism, so we’re all in this together.”
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing the wall text “Technological Addictions” with at bottom left, Martin Parr’s Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai, India (2018, below); at second right, Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below) and at right, New York, USA (1999, below)
Technological Addictions
Even in his exploration of technology, Parr remains a humanist in both his practice and overarching project: what interests him is our relationship to the technology rather than the object or machine itself. As a keen observer of behaviour and constantly on the lookout for unexplored for unexplored topics, Parr examined how the human body interacts differently with each new technological object. He also probes technology’s growing role in daily lives and imagination, and the dependency it engenders. At the same time, he implicitly explores the way technology profoundly alters our perception of reality and our relationship to space and time.
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below); and at top right, England, United Kingdom (1994) and at bottom right, England, United Kingdom (1994)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing Martin Parr’s Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s New York, USA (1999, below); and at right top, Salford, United Kingdom (1986) and right bottom, Dublin, Ireland (1986)
‘I was hanging around a petrol station like a pervert. Photographers at the time would have said that this was the craziest place to take a picture. Because it’s a very unglamorous subject matter. Boring. There’s no drama here. But there’s something really interesting about boring. Something that seems very ordinary at the time becomes interesting when you look back at it later, almost 40 years later: the pump has changed, the clothes have changed, the car has changed. It tells us something about consumerism, and how we depend on fuel, oil and petrol.
From Martin Parr’s interview, ‘”There’s something very interesting about boring” Martin Parr on his life in pictures.’ The Guardian, 24 August 2025 Wall text from the exhibition
‘Although many museums have now banned the selfie stick, outside in the street, especially in front of that iconic monument or landmark the stick comes into its own. Getting the photo of you and your loved one(s) with the landmark in the background is de rigueur. The tourism industry, which is the biggest in the world, now dictates that the first requirement of any trip is to prove you were there with the necessary photo. It connects you to the world that we know and understand, and it is a vital part of any successful holiday experience. We used to have to ask a passing tourist to take the photo, but thanks to the selfie stick those days are over and we are now self sufficient.’
From Martin Parr’s blog, The Selfie Stick, 2015 Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photographs Advertisement for Sony PlayStation, England, United Kingdom (2003); and at right, Ooty, India (2018, above)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at right, Martin Parr’s photograph from The Republican National Convention, Cleveland, Ohio, USA (2016, below)
Curators: Julien Faure-Conorton, head of research and scientific promotion of the collections, Albert-Kahn Museum and David-Sean Thomas, exhibition manager, Albert-Kahn Museum
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) L’église au soleil couchant, Ouidah, Dahomey (Bénin), 2 mai 1930 (The church at sunset, Ouidah, Dahomey (Benin), May 2, 1930) 1930 Autochrome 9 x 12cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Honneur et patrie (Honour and fatherland)
Another exhibition on an obscure topic that Art Blart likes to promote…
Of all things, I was watching an episode of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on streaming the other day and one of the Russian characters turns around and says, “Once a colony, always a colony.” As Dr Ama Biney cogently observes, “the past is not dead … it lives on in the present.” This is how she perceives the impact of history.1
The past leading the present.
Reading the history of Dahomey (now Benin) it’s the usual story of many European countries slicing and dicing the people, treasures and resources of a foreign kingdom.
“… the 1897 invasion of Benin contributed to the greater African holocaust enshrined in our experience of enslavement, colonialism and neo-colonialism. The brutal desecration of Benin lives and culture through the theft of over 4,000 of its artefacts by Western Europeans seems to be a known but yet untold story. It led to the demise of the Great Benin Kingdom, marking a most significant period in the continuing scramble for African resources. During the invasion the Oba (King) was deposed and deported to Calabar [Nigeria] on 13 September 1897 where he died 16 years later.”1
The photographs in this posting were taken in 1930 only 17 years after the exiled Oba died. The wounds would have been raw and open, probably still are.
While the first two photographs below are NOT in the exhibition, they are most pertinent for they inform all that follows, no matter what the Albert Kahn Museum – which promotes the work of Albert Kahn (1860-1940), a French banker and philanthropist who devoted his fortune to promoting knowledge and understanding between peoples – likes to think.
“Proud and resigned, the ministers of Behanzin pose on the deck of the Mésange. As a reminder of the victory, the motto ‘Honneur et patrie’ (the motto of the French army) is displayed above their heads.”
Many thankx to the Musée départemental Albert-Kahn for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“The term ‘post-colonial’ is used generally to describe all cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonisation to the present day. It is also considered as the most appropriate term for the new cross-cultural criticism which has emerged in recent years and for the discourse through which it is constituted.”
W.D Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routledge, 1989. p.2.
“I do not think people are used to seeing cultures that were labelled primitive as contemporary culture. This is primitivism in continued operation, in the inability to recognise these as photographs of people that are connected to contemporary culture. The blind spot is so large; it is devastating and it continues to affect First Nations peoples. The sensitivities and limitations around displaying the photographic evidence of the people who perished is tied up in this primitivist ideology.”
Brook Andrew speaking in interview in Brook Andrew and Jessica Neath. “Encounters with Legacy Images: Decolonising and Re-imagining Photographic Evidence from the Colonial Archive,” in History of Photography, 42:3, 2018, pp. 217-238.
The exile of King Behanzin in photographs
King Behanzin finally surrendered in January 1894 and was deported to Martinique with his family. This exile was immortalised by a few black and white photographs taken by a sailor on the schooner “La Mésange”.
Unknown photographer Behanzin and his family January 1894 SHD Vincennes
THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS NOT IN THE EXHIBITION
Behanzin and his family
The exiled king remains dignified; he is surrounded by his relatives – women and a child. One of the women holds an umbrella to protect his head and another seems to be bringing him a drink. The looks are serious, but not overpowering. In the background are French soldiers wearing colonial helmets; on the left, ropes remind us that we are on a ship.
Unknown photographer Behanzin’s ministers January 1894 SHD Vincennes
THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS NOT IN THE EXHIBITION
Behanzin’s ministers
Proud and resigned, the ministers of Behanzin pose on the deck of the Mésange. As a reminder of the victory, the motto ‘Honneur et patrie’ (the motto of the French army) is displayed above their heads. One of their jailers, a sailor armed with a rifle, poses with them, but curiously blurred by the light, he seems to fade away in front of the dignity of this government in exile.
This conquest was organised in three stages, punctuated by three military-scientific expeditions. The first expedition, which aimed essentially to defend the French trading posts on the coast, was entrusted to Commander Terrillon of the Troupes de Marine and took place from March to April 1890. It ended with the battle of Atchoupa, on 20 April 1890, and a French victory. A first peace treaty was signed on 3 October 1890, but it was not ratified by the Chamber of Deputies. The situation between the kingdom of Dahomey and France remained tense, with King Behanzin, hostile to French interference, opting for a policy of force and confrontation. A second expedition was organised from July to December 1892, preceded by a maritime blockade of the coast. This time it was no longer a question of defending the French establishments with a rapidly built-up force, but of leading an expedition into the heart of the kingdom of Dahomey, with the eventual establishment of a protectorate. The expedition was entrusted to Colonel Dodds. Starting from Cotonou and Porto Novo, the French column went up to Abomey, the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey, occupied on 17 November 1892. It was there that the now General Dodds had the royal objects seized and sent to France. He also proclaimed the deposition of King Behanzin, but did not manage to take him prisoner. This was the aim of the third expedition, from October 1894 to January 1895. It ended on 15 January with the proclamation of a new king of Dahomey, allied with France, then with the surrender of Behanzin, and finally with the proclamation of the French protectorate over Dahomey on 29 January 1895.
With Behanzin defeated, Upper Dahomey opened up to French penetration, with the Niger in its sights. According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Delcassé, the aim was to keep the road to the Sudan and Niger open by establishing a French sphere of influence in Upper Dahomey. From 1894 to 1898, a series of missions made it possible to establish this French trusteeship, recognised by a series of conventions with Germany and the United Kingdom between 1897 and 1898.
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Joueurs de tambours royaux, Sakété, Dahomey (Bénin), 14 janvier 1930 (Royal drummers, Sakété, Dahomey (Benin), January 14, 1930) 1930 Autochrome 9 x 12cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Autel du vodún Djéholou, Adjarra, Dahomey (Bénin), 19 janvier 1930 (Vodun altar of Djéholou, Adjarra, Dahomey (Benin), January 19, 1930) 1930 Autochrome 9 x 12cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Village dans les collines, Dahomey (Bénin), 26 avril 1930 (Village in the Hills, Dahomey (Benin), April 26, 1930) 1930 Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Soeurs et épouses du chef Justin Aho, Abomey, Dahomey (Bénin), 8 mars 1930 (Sisters and wives of Chief Justin Aho, Abomey, Dahomey (Benin), March 8, 1930) 1930 Autochrome 12 x 9 cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
The Albert-Kahn Museum’s current exhibition, A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 (Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930), offers a reinterpretation of the films and photographs produced during a mission to Dahomey (now Benin) led from January to May 1930 by Catholic missionary Francis Aupiais and camera operator Frédéric Gadmer for Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet. This immersion, meant as a Franco-Beninese dialogue, questions the views on non-European cultures in a context of colonial rule and the birth of ethnography.
Following on from a series of inaugural exhibitions dedicated to travel and gardens, the Albert-Kahn Museum continues to explore the fundamental themes of its collections, this time focusing on perspectives on non-European cultures and the ethnographic dimension of the Archives of the Planet, recently added to the UNESCO ‘Memory of the World’ Register.
The 1930 mission to Dahomey was unique in several ways: it was the only foray by the Archives of the Planet into sub-Saharan Africa, the last major expedition before the project was halted due to Albert Kahn’s bankruptcy, and the result of an initiative by an atypical clergyman, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945). This missionary priest, committed to a long-term endeavour to improve knowledge of African cultures, contacted Albert Kahn in 1927 and convinced him to finance his project to document Dahomey’s cultural and religious practices, in line with the philanthropist’s humanist views.
One of the first film collections of French ethnography
Father Aupiais’s goal was to promote an ‘African recognitio’ by documenting the traditional culture of Dahomey, particularly royal ceremonies and vodun rituals, which he held in high esteem. The mission lasted four and a half months, during which Frédéric Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes (colour photographs) and shot 140 film reels under Aupiais’s direction. These films, the first of this scale to be shot in Dahomey, constitute the largest collection of films in the Archives of the Planet and one of the first film collections of French ethnography, five years after the founding of the Paris Institute of Ethnology and one year before the Dakar-Djibouti mission.
Recently digitised in high definition (4K), these films constitute the narrative arc of the exhibition, which aims to present the outline, challenges, and legacy of this unusual mission, a century later. Projected in large format throughout an immersive journey, they offer unprecedented image quality and immerse visitors in the intimacy of Dahomey’s ceremonies and cults, forging links between yesterday’s protagonists and today’s visitors, between France and Benin.
Numerous objects, in a large part loaned by the musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, echo the still and moving images: emblems of power, vodun artifacts, and tools dedicated to divination are striking in their sophistication, matching the uses for which they were intended, documented in the films. These rare pieces also feature items exhibited in France by Father Aupiais himself.
Views from contemporary African artists
A Return Trip to Benin also questions the contemporary reception of images from 1930 through the eyes of artists from the African continent. Serving as a perspective and critical counterpoint, artworks by Ishola Akpo, Thulani Chauke, Sènami Donoumassou, Bronwyn Lace, Roméo Mivekannin, Angelo Moustapha, and Marcus Neustetter, several of which were created specifically for the exhibition, combine painting, photography, installation, and performance, reappropriating and reactivating the photographs and films.
The Albert-Kahn Museum
Located in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, the Albert-Kahn Museum preserves and promotes the work of Albert Kahn (1860-1940), a French banker and philanthropist who devoted his fortune to promoting knowledge and understanding between peoples. In addition to the collection of photographs and films in the Archives of the Planet, it features a four-hectare landscaped garden, the vegetal embodiment of its patron’s universalist dream.
An ambitious renovation completed in 2022 significantly increased the space dedicated to exhibitions, notably thanks to a new 2,300-square-meter building designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, creating a dialogue between the image collections and the garden. The museum has welcomed more than 600,000 visitors since its reopening.
Press release from Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris
Installation view of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026
Installation view of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026 showing a selection of black and white photographs by Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) (see below)
Installation view of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026 showing a selection of Automchromes by Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954)
Installation views of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026 showing at left, Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Soeurs et épouses du chef Justin Aho, Abomey, Dahomey (Bénin), 8 mars 1930 (Sisters and wives of Chief Justin Aho, Abomey, Dahomey (Benin), March 8, 1930) 1930
Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930 offers a new interpretation of films and photographs produced during a Mission des Archives de la Planète, carried out by Catholic missionary Francis Aupiais and cameraman Frédéric Gadmer in Dahomey (present-day Benin) from January to May 1930. This immersive exhibition, shaped as a Franco-Beninese dialogue, questions how extra-European cultures were viewed in a context of colonial domination and the emergence of ethnography.
The 1930 mission to Dahomey was unique in several aspects: it was the only foray by the Archives de la Planète into sub-Saharan Africa, the last major expedition before the project was halted due to the bankruptcy of Kahn bank, it was the initiative of an atypical man of the church, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945), and lasted four and a half months, during which Frédéric Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes (colour photographs) and shot 140 reels of film under Aupiais’s direction.
These films, the first of this scale to be shot in Dahomey, constitute the most extensive collection of films in the Archives de la Planète and one of the earliest film collections of French ethnography, five years following the establishment of the Institut d’ethnologie de Paris and one year prior to the Dakar-Djibouti mission.
Bénin aller-retour also interrogates the contemporary reception of the 1930 images through the perspective of artists from the African continent. The works of Ishola Akpo, Thulani Chauke, Sènami Donoumassou, Bronwyn Lace, Roméo Mivekannin, Angelo Moustapha, and Marcus Neustetter, several of which were created especially for the exhibition, combine painting, photography, installation, and performance, as reappropriations – and reactivations – of the photographs and films.
The Exhibition
A major exhibition for the 2025-2026 season at the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum, A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 offers a reinterpretation of films and photographs produced during an Archives of the Planet mission led by Catholic missionary Francis Aupiais and cameraman Frédéric Gadmer in Dahomey (present-day Benin) from January to May 1930. This immersive experience, in the form of a Franco-Beninese dialogue, questions the way non-European cultures were perceived within the context of colonial rule and the birth of ethnography. Prior to the exhibition, fieldwork documentation missions were carried out in 2023-2024 by the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum in partnership with Beninese heritage experts, as part of a cooperation program between the Hauts-de-Seine Department and the Zou Community of Municipalities in Benin.
A Unique Mission of the Archives of the Planet
Following a reopening cycle dedicated to travel, and then an exhibition showcasing images of gardens, the Albert-Kahn departmental museum continues its exploration of the fundamental themes of its collections, this time focusing on the perspective of the other and the ethnographic dimension of the Archives of the Planet, recently inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.
The 1930 mission to Dahomey is unique in several respects: the only incursion of the Archives of the Planet into sub-Saharan Africa, the last large-scale expedition before the project was halted due to the bankruptcy of the Kahn bank, it resulted from the initiative of an atypical clergyman, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945). This missionary priest, committed to a long-term project for a better understanding of African cultures, contacted Albert Kahn in 1927 and convinced him to finance his work documenting Dahomean cultural and religious practices, which naturally aligned with the philanthropist’s humanist project.
One of the first film collections of French ethnography
Father Aupiais’s aim was to contribute to an “African recognition” by documenting the evangelisation but especially the traditional culture of Dahomey, in particular the royal ceremonies and Vodun rites, which he held in high esteem. The mission lasted four and a half months, during which Frédéric Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes (colour photographs) and shot 140 reels of film, under Aupiais’s direction. These films, the first of this scale shot in Dahomey, constitute the largest collection of films in the Archives of the Planet and one of the first film collections of French ethnography, five years after the founding of the Paris Institute of Ethnology and one year before the Dakar-Djibouti mission.
Recently digitised in high definition (4K), these films form the central thread of the exhibition, which aims to present the unfolding, the stakes, and the legacy, a century later, of this unique mission. Projected in large format throughout an immersive experience, they offer unprecedented image quality and plunge visitors into the heart of Dahomean ceremonies and rituals, forging connections between the protagonists of the past and the public of today, between France and Benin.
Numerous objects, loaned notably by the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, resonate with the still and moving images: emblems of power, Vodun attributes, and divination tools are striking in their sophistication, reflecting the uses for which they were intended and which the films document. Among these rare pieces are some objects exhibited in France by Father Aupiais himself.
Artists’ Perspectives from the African Continent
A Benin Round Trip also explores the contemporary reception of images from 1930 through the perspectives of artists from the African continent. Serving as contextualisation and critical counterpoints, the works of Ishola Akpo, Thulani Chauke, Sènami Donoumassou, Bronwyn Lace, Roméo Mivekannin, Angelo Moustapha, and Marcus Neustetter, several of which were created specifically for the exhibition, blend painting, photography, installation, and performance, representing a reappropriation – and reactivation – of the photographs and films.
Throughout the exhibition, a genuine exchange of perspectives is fostered to construct new narratives that respect Beninese sensibilities and knowledge. This approach was made possible thanks to the numerous collaborations established with heritage experts in Benin, both within the framework of the project’s scientific committee and in that of two documentation missions carried out on site by the Albert-Kahn departmental museum in 2023-2024, thus continuing Albert Kahn’s program: “training to see, training to know.”
Exhibition design and layout
The exhibition offers an immersion in the images of 1930 through a modern and minimalist scenography, the juxtaposition of photographs and films with numerous objects and the spectacular presentation of the films in the form of large format projections.
Father Aupiais’s Dahomey
This introductory section presents the historical context as well as the figure of Francis Aupiais, the initiator of this Archives of the Planet mission, whose figure remains well known in Benin.
The Kingdom of Dahomey was founded in the 17th century by the Fon people, under the cultural influence of neighboring peoples and pre-existing city-states. Links were quickly forged with Europe, and the region saw the arrival of travellers, traders, and missionaries. The slave trade, established by Europeans to meet the demand of the Americas and the West Indies, exacerbated conflicts between kingdoms. The travel accounts published by Westerners at the time, riddled with inaccuracies and prejudices, revelled in describing the warlike and ferocious nature of the rulers of Dahomey. They also demonstrate a fascination with Vodun, a religion and animistic system of thought that they denigrate as “fetishism.”
In 1894, following a war against the King of Dahomey, Béhanzin, the country became a French colony: Dahomey. This conquest, which received considerable media attention in France, was still fresh in everyone’s minds when Francis Aupiais arrived there for the Society of African Missions.
Auguste Léon (French, 1857-1942) Portrait du révérend père Aupiais, Boulogne-sur-Seine, 9 août 1927 (Portrait of Reverend Father Aupiais, Boulogne-sur-Seine, August 9, 1927) 1927 Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
~ Francis Aupiais (1877-1945)
Ordained a priest of the Society of African Missions of Lyon in 1902, Francis Aupiais was sent to Dahomey the following year. There, he served as director of schools and later as superior of the mission in the capital, Porto-Novo. Like the Bishop of Dahomey, François Steinmetz (1868-1952), he sought to understand and promote Dahomean culture. To this end, he learned the language and researched its history, art, and customs from local authorities, particularly Vodun religious leaders.
This fraternal dialogue materialised within the journal La Reconnaissance africaine (1925-1927), to which the future writer Paul Hazoumé (1890-1980) contributed, as well as Thomas Mouléro (1888-1975) and Gabriel Kiti (1900-1948), the first two Dahomeans ordained priests.
Returning to France at the end of 1926, Father Aupiais undertook an intense propaganda campaign aimed at “rehabilitating Black people in the eyes of Europeans” and attended the Paris Institute of Ethnology in preparation for his most ambitious undertaking: a film mission to Dahomey.
The Aupiais-Gadmer Mission
This space presents the second protagonist of the adventure, Frédéric Gadmer, and provides visitors with insights into the 1930 mission (duration, route, topics covered, dual film corpus, etc.).
On January 1, 1930, Father Aupiais arrived in Cotonou accompanied by Frédéric Gadmer, an operator for the Archives of the Planet. For four and a half months, the two men traveled nearly 1,600 kilometers by train and car. Their itinerary focused on southern Dahomey: the Porto-Novo region, where Aupiais had lived for nearly twenty-five years, and the Abomey region, capital of the former kingdom of Dahomey. The pair also made a short stay in the north, in Natitingou, whose culture the missionary wished to document from a comparative perspective. Gadmer carried three devices with him: a camera for creating autochromes (colour slides) and two cameras with complementary capabilities, an ICA and a Debrie. In total, Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes representing 312 different subjects and shot 140 reels of film, representing a little over 10 kilometres of film, equivalent to 8 hours and 30 minutes of footage.
This constitutes the largest film corpus in the Archives of the Planet and one of the most ambitious ethnographic undertakings of the first half of the 20th century.
Aris Lachalarde (French, 1881-1964) Portrait de Frédéric Gadmer, Boulogne-sur-Seine (Portrait of Frédéric Gadmer, Boulogne-sur-Seine) Nd Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
~ Frédéric Gadmer (1878-1954)
A professional photographer, Frédéric Gadmer was employed by the army during the First World War and undertook a long mission in Cameroon (1916-1918). In 1919, Albert Kahn (1860-1940) recruited this seasoned photographer for the Archives of the Planet. Gadmer became one of the most prolific photographers for the banker’s philanthropic project, distinguishing himself by his taste for distant horizons, from Syria to Canada, by way of Persia and Afghanistan.
He trained in filmmaking in 1924, thus acquiring a valuable dual skill set which contributed to his being chosen to accompany Father Aupiais to Dahomey in 1930. A reserved and rigorous man, Gadmer combined the humanist ambitions of the missionary with the documentary rigour of Jean Brunhes (1869-1930), scientific director of the Archives of the Planet, while also overcoming the technical difficulties of the field (high temperature, high humidity, etc.).
A Portrait of Dahomey
This third section, the largest in the exhibition, explores the three main themes addressed by the photographs and films of the mission.
~ Colonisation and Evangelisation
Given the circumstances, colonial influence and missionary activities are, of course, central to the corpus. This section notably presents Christian Dahomey, a missionary propaganda film conceived by Aupiais alongside his documentation of traditional Dahomean culture.
During their mission, Aupiais and Gadmer primarily documented three interconnected themes that sketch a rich and nuanced portrait of Dahomey at that time: colonisation and evangelisation, power and royalty, and finally, Vodun.
In 1930, the French presence was palpable everywhere, from newly constructed avenues to the lucrative palm oil trade. The role played by French Catholic missionaries is also described by Aupiais in Le Dahomey chrétien, a propaganda film extolling the benefits of evangelisation through education, healthcare, and agricultural production. This idealised vision however, it obscures a harsher reality: that of a population under colonial rule, often coerced by force. But the voices denouncing this situation and demanding a form of independence – which would be proclaimed in 1960 – remained a minority. An agent of colonisation, Aupiais was also a defender of the Dahomeans and their rights, notably speaking out against forced labour.
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Portrait du chef de canton Justin Aho, Dahomey (Bénin), 8 mars 1930 (Portrait of Chief Justin Aho, Dahomey (Benin), March 8, 1930) 1930 Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
~ Power and Royalty
One of Aupiais’s main areas of study concerns the ceremonial surrounding the manifestations of power and royal ceremonies, particularly funeral rites, in Dahomean culture.
Aupiais’s interest in what he calls “ceremonialism” leads him to document everything related to Dahomean traditions and customs in order to reveal their beauty and sophistication. This is how Gadmer filmed numerous royal ceremonies, especially funeral rites.
Beyond protocol, the seats of power are also depicted, from the Honmè Palace in Porto-Novo to the famous royal palaces of Abomey. The prestige objects – royal staffs, parasols, palanquins – attest to a splendour that is also a tool for legitimising power, particularly for the canton chiefs, who owe their position to the colonial authorities.
The portraits painted by Gadmer are a perfect testimony to this. The claim to a historical heritage is further expressed through panegyrics that celebrate the genealogy and exploits of the ancient kings whose power is linked to the divine. Royalty, colonisation, and Vodun are thus intimately linked.
~ Vodun
This section explores how Aupiais documented Vodun ceremonies, not to denigrate them, but rather to demonstrate the respectability of this religion, which is, more broadly, a way of thinking.
A system of thought and an animistic religion, Vodun embodies a worldview in which the elements of nature (earth, thunder, water, etc.) serve as intermediaries between humans and a higher spiritual entity. Initiates, both men and women, are responsible for their worship: these are the vodunsi, the “wives of Vodun.”
Through its complexity and richness, and the refinement of its ceremonies and associated dances, Vodun perfectly aligns with Aupiais’s interest in “ceremonialism.” The missionary saw this as proof of the high spiritual value of the Dahomeans, which, according to him, predisposed them to convert to Catholicism. His privileged relationships with religious leaders gave him access to rare ceremonies, never before filmed.
These scenes offer a unique glimpse into the vitality of Vodun in 1930, a vitality that continues to this day. Among the subjects filmed, prayers to ancestors and the divinatory art of Fa received particular attention.
The Making of Films
This fourth section offers a different perspective, examining the behind-the-scenes aspects of the mission and what it entailed to make a film in 1930 for the Archives of the Planet. The question of staging is also addressed and explained, as well as the context of the birth of ethnographic cinema.
The Dahomey mission is by far the best documented in the Archives of the Planet thanks to the shooting diary kept by Gadmer. This exceptional document not only provides us with very precise information about the content of the 140 reels shot by the cameraman using his two cameras, but it also offers valuable insights into his filming methods, the conditions on location, and the technical difficulties encountered.
The recent digitisation of the original reels in high definition has been a true revelation: it has allowed for a reassessment of the scope and ethnographic value of these films and a rediscovery of the formal beauty of the shots filmed by Gadmer. Previously unseen images have also emerged, in particular shot marks, “ghost” portraits of rare power, which bear witness to both an era in the history of cinema and the dignity of a population under colonial rule.
Comparison with other contemporary ethnographic works – particularly the films of the American anthropologists Melville and Frances Herskovits – while underlining the unique character of the images produced by Aupiais and Gadmer, also reveals some of their limitations.
Finally, the exhibition concludes with a look at the dissemination of these images upon the mission’s return and their legacy to the present day. Topics covered include the 1931 Vincennes Colonial Exhibition, Father Aupiais’ lectures, as well as the work carried out on this collection since 1945 and the contemporary reinterpretations proposed by artists from the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg.
Upon returning from the mission, Aupiais disseminated its findings. On October 24, 1930, an exhibition of Dahomean art was inaugurated by the Minister of Colonies at the headquarters of the Kahn Foundations’ general secretariat (a few meters from the current museum). Aupiais presented pieces from the collection he had assembled to reveal the cultural richness of Dahomey to the French. At the same time, he provided commentary on the films shot by Gadmer under his direction.
In 1931, the Vincennes Colonial Exhibition provided an opportunity to showcase the images brought back from the mission, but also, for Albert Kahn, to host the members of the Dahomey delegation at his estate. Soon ordered by his superiors to cease his “melanophile propaganda,” Aupiais would not return to these films until years later, dedicating lectures to them until his death in 1945. Since then, this collection has been a constant subject of study.
Today, it is at the heart of a dual collaborative approach: documentary, with two field missions to meet with Beninese experts, and artistic, by inviting prominent figures from the African continent to reclaim and reactivate this shared century-old heritage.
Text from the Musée départemental Albert-Kahn website
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Vodúnon exécutant la danse de Hèviosso, Oumbégamé (près d’Abomey), Dahomey (Bénin), 17 février 1930 (Vodun performing the dance of Heviosso, Oumbégamé (near Abomey), Dahomey (Benin), February 17, 1930) 1930 Frame taken from the reel “Fetishism 1” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Vodúnon exécutant la danse de Hèviosso, Oumbégamé (près d’Abomey), Dahomey (Bénin), 17 février 1930 (Vodun performing the dance of Heviosso, Oumbégamé (near Abomey), Dahomey (Benin), February 17, 1930) 1930 Frame taken from the reel “Fetishism 1” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Marque du plan No. 380, Djimé (environs d’Abomey), Dahomey (Bénin), 26 mars 1930 (Mark of plan No. 380, Djimé (near Abomey), Dahomey (Benin), March 26, 1930) 1930 Still image from the reel “Various Scenes” 35mm nitrate film
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Cérémonie de purifi cation de deux vodúnsi, Agbankamé (près d’Abomey), Dahomey (Bénin), 18 février 1930 (Purification ceremony of two vodunsi, Agbankamé (near Abomey), Dahomey (Benin), February 18, 1930) 1930 Frame taken from the reel “Fetishism 3” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Consécration de quatre vodúnsi dans un couvent, Covè, Dahomey (Bénin), 11 mars 1930 (Consecration of four vodunsi in a convent, Covè, Dahomey (Benin), March 11, 1930) 1930 Frame taken from the reel “Fetishism 1” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Consultation du Fa par le bokonon, Banhito (près de Porto-Novo), Dahomey (Bénin), 12 avril 1930 (Consultation of the Fa oracle by the bokonon, Banhito (near Porto-Novo), Dahomey (Benin), April 12, 1930) 1930 Frame extracted from the reel “Dances, Funeral of a King” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
The contemporary journey
The curators chose to give prominence to contemporary art by inviting several African artists, particularly from Benin, to enrich the perspective on this shared heritage that is the Archives of the Planet.
This dialogue between past and present is materialised through paintings, photographs, performances, sound creations, and installations, through which the artists appropriate the exhibition’s theme by offering a counterpoint to the historical narrative.
Among the works on display, five were directly inspired by the autochromes and films of the 1930 mission, three of which were commissioned specifically for the exhibition.
Roméo Mivekannin (Ivory Coast, b. 1986) La Mère Mélanie et deux épouses de Glélé, palais royaux d’Abomey (Mother Melanie and two wives of Glélé, royal palaces of Abomey) 2021 Painting, elixir bath, pigments and binders on canvas 255 x 264cm Courtesy Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Paris
Roméo Mivekannin
The work of Roméo Mivekannin (born in 1986) revisits Western representations of Black bodies. In his paintings and sculptures, the artist appropriates testimonies from the colonial past (paintings, photographs) to subvert their meaning, for example, by inserting his self-portrait into Frédéric Gadmer’s autochromes, which depict the figures involved in the evangelisation of Dahomey.
Commissioned for the exhibition thanks to the support of the Friends of the Albert-Kahn Museum, his work, entitled Adangba, takes the form of an imposing parasol decorated with royal motifs, inspired by the autochromes and films of the 1930 mission. It overlooks the central section of the exhibition dedicated to Beninese cultural heritage.
Angelo Moustapha
Voted best percussionist in Africa in 2017, Angelo Moustapha (born in 1993) weaves together the traditional sounds of his native Benin with innovative artistic currents, such as modern jazz. Ibilè, which means “origin” or “identity” in Yoruba, is a musical creation conceived specifically for the exhibition. Angelo Moustapha composed it, drawing inspiration from the rhythms visible in scenes filmed in 1930. It is not an attempt to recreate the original sound of these silent films, but rather an invitation to take a fresh look at these archival images.
Bronwyn Lace (b. 1980) Bronwyn Lace dans le Pepper’s Ghost, SO Academy, Johannesburg, 12 mai 2023 (Bronwyn Lace at Pepper’s Ghost, SO Academy, Johannesburg, May 12, 2023) 2023 Digital photograph by Zivanai Matangi The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg
Bronwyn Lace
Co-founder with William Kentridge of the Centre for the Less Good Idea, an unconventional artistic creation space based in Johannesburg, Bronwyn Lace (born in 1980) has collaborated with the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum since 2022. Her performance, Amazing Grapes, is inspired by the films of Father Aupiais and Frédéric Gadmer, which she overlays with her own childhood memories in South Africa. It has been specially adapted for the exhibition to be presented in a miniature “Pepper’s Ghost” (a theatrical optical illusion device).
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Portait du chef de canton Zodéougan, Zado, Dahomey (Bénin), 28 février 1930 (Portrait of Chief Zodéougan, Zado, Dahomey (Benin), February 28, 1930) 1930 Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Thulani Chauke
South African dancer, choreographer, and performer, Thulani Chauke regularly collaborates with William Kentridge and the Centre for the Less Good Idea. Fascinated by one of the autochromes from the 1930 mission – the portrait of canton chief Zodéougan – he has created a work that highlights the performative dimension of colonial archives and raises questions about how we see ourselves and others: Finding the Dahomean Prince (2025).
Installation view of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026 showing the work of Ishola Akpo with at left, Trace d’une reine I (2020, below); and at right, Iyami (2021, below)
Ishola Akpo
Ishola Akpo (born in 1983) brings forgotten African narratives to light by creating composite works that engage in a dialogue between personal and collective memory. In the series Traces of a Queen from his AGBARA Women project, the Beninese artist combines contemporary photography, historical iconography, and embroidery to bring back from oblivion major female figures in African history, such as Queen Tassi Hangbé, long erased from the royal genealogies of Dahomey.
Ishola Akpo (Benin, b. 1983) Trace d’une reine I 2020 Traces of a Queen series, AGBARA Women project Collage and sewing on paper, cotton thread, 44 x 37.5cm Zinsou Collection, Ouidah
Ishola Akpo (Benin, b. 1983) Iyami 2021
Noticing the lack of archives on the queens of various African kingdoms, artist Ishola Akpo created several series of works that retrace their history, using different mediums as a metaphor for the complex stories of the figures and their true political weight. Among them, the Agbara Women photographic series creates fictional portraits that shed light on the queens’ histories. Each portrait’s elements trace Akpo’s Yoruba/Nago culture and its traditions, the photos and illustrations of the Zinsou Foundation Archives on Dahomey, and the artist’s travels and books. For example, Iyami is a portrait of a regal-looking older woman, seated and swathed in crisp white cloth, adorned with a red beaded crown and various pieces of gold and silver jewellery. The woman clasps a wooden staff; the solemn authority of this gesture is underscored by her stoic expression. The title of the work means mother in the West African language Yoruba, and the portrait sitter is the artist’s actual mother. Through this fictionalised photograph, Akpo creates a space for a relationship between the “little stories” of contemporary women embodying “great women”. More than just an ode to the power of women, the series questions the amnesic and patriarchal dimensions of African history, embodied by portraits of known and forgotten queens.
Text from the KADIST website Nd [Online] Cited 13/05/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Sènami Donoumassou (Benin, b. 1991) Ahantun dagbanu (series Akɔ mla mla) 2022 Silver gelatin print on baryta paper, accompanied by sound recordings 61 x 50.8 cm Artist’s personal collection
Sènami Donoumassou
A Beninese visual artist, Sènami Donoumassou (born in 1991) uses various modes of expression to explore the notions of identity, heritage, and history: videos, installations, photograms, and drawings. The works in her series Akɔ mla mla (“Panegyrics”), as well as her installation Ðɛgbè (“Prayer”), which examines the notion of religious syncretism, perfectly echo the images collected by Father Aupiais and Frédéric Gadmer in 1930, bearing witness to the richness and perpetuation of traditional culture in Benin.
Georges Chevalier (French, 1882-1967) Art dahoméen: masque Gèlèdè aux serpents géminés, Orléans, 14 décembre 1927 (Dahomean art: Gelede mask with twin serpents, Orléans, December 14, 1927) 1927 Autochrome 12 x 9cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
A heritage in images and objects
The autochromes and films made in Dahomey by Frédéric Gadmer under the direction of Father Aupiais document many aspects of the country’s cultural heritage, particularly royal, religious, and funerary ceremonies. These images constitute a precious testimony of what Aupiais called “ceremonialism.”
In the exhibition, the various concepts involved are explained through educational texts intended for both adults and young audiences (for whom a family tour is dedicated). The curators have also selected emblematic heritage objects, similar to those seen in the films and photographs, in order to allow visitors to better understand their materiality, function, and use.
In total, nearly thirty objects (tapestries, seats, statuettes, royal staffs, gourds, etc.) are on display thanks to the support of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, as well as the collaboration of the Carrefour des cultures africaines in Lyon, the Muséum de Toulouse, and private collections. Among this collection of objects are pieces gathered by Father Aupiais himself and exhibited in France as early as 1927 to demonstrate to Europeans the richness of Dahomean culture.
Melville (1895-1963) and Frances (Shapiro) Herskovits (1897-1972) were pioneering American anthropologists who revolutionised African and African Diaspora studies. Working as a team from the late 1920s through the 1940s, they conducted field research in West Africa, South America, and the Caribbean, focusing on cultural continuities from Africa in Black communities.
An ethnographic mission?
The exhibition also situates this mission of the Archives of the Planet within the context of the emergence of ethnography as a discipline in France. Upon his return to France at the end of 1926, Father Aupiais attended lectures by Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) and associated with Paul Rivet (1876-1956) and Maurice Lévy-Bruhl, who, along with Mauss, founded the Institute of Ethnology in Paris in 1925.
This new scientific discipline significantly influenced the organization of the mission funded by Albert Kahn and can thus be compared to other similar undertakings carried out in the following years, such as the Dakar-Djibouti mission (1931-1933). A striking parallel also exists abroad with the work of the American anthropologists Melville and Frances Herskovits, who traveled extensively through Dahomey less than a year after Father Aupiais and Frédéric Gadmer. For the first time in France, the exhibition presents their filmed and audio recordings, which allow for a better understanding of the images collected by Aupiais and Gadmer.
Shared perspectives and international cooperation
The preparation of the exhibition involved numerous collaborations with heritage experts in Benin, both within the scientific committee and the project team, as well as during the two fact-finding missions conducted on-site by the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum in 2023 and 2024. These field missions were carried out with the support of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs as part of the cooperation program between the Hauts-de-Seine Department and the Zou Community of Municipalities in Benin.
The Department launched its international cooperation program with Benin in 2017 as part of its international solidarity policy, with the main objectives being the fight against food insecurity among vulnerable populations, securing the incomes of small-scale producers, developing market-connected agricultural entrepreneurship, and promoting sustainable development and positive action through agroecology. This initiative notably led to the deployment of an agricultural development program in the Zou region. To continue the work begun, the program was renewed in 2022 for a period of four years. Its objective: to strengthen family farming and support households and social entrepreneurs in rural and peri-urban areas.
This cooperation also includes a cultural component, integrated into the agreement in 2022, which has grown in scope over recent years, thanks to the involvement of the Zou inter-municipal council in hosting documentary missions in preparation for the exhibition. This cultural component enabled the organization, in November-December 2023 in Abomey, of an exhibition entitled “The Zou, from Yesterday to Today: Intersecting Perspectives,” combining images from 1930 and the present day. Public conferences and screenings were also held, notably in Covè in 2024 where the films of Frédéric Gadmer and Francis Aupiais were screened on the very sites where they had been filmed.
Finally, the “Dahomey” collection from the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum was presented in 2023 at the School of African Heritage (Porto-Novo) and in 2024 at the Zinsou Foundation (Cotonou), anticipating a desired tour of the exhibition in Benin – currently under study – as well as possible partnerships with future Beninese museums, in particular the International Vodun Museum in Porto-Novo and the Museum of the Kings and Amazons of Dahomey in Abomey.
Text from the Musée départemental Albert-Kahn website
A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 exhibition poster
Musée départemental Albert-Kahn Albert-Kahn Museum 2 rue du Port, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday (closed Mondays) 11am – 6pm
Curator: Hans Rooseboom, Curator of Photography at the Rijksmuseum
W.H. Martin (American, 1865-1940)(photographer) The North American Post Card Co. (publisher) The largest ear of corn grown 1908 Postcard Rijksmuseum Purchase 2018
William H. “Dad” Martin of Ottawa, Kan., is considered to be the father of the exaggerated postcard. Some of his better work featured huge ears of corn, giant apples and peaches, stalks of wheat taller than any man and massive pumpkins uprooting a farmstead. Such cards were hugely successful throughout the Great Plains states where agriculture was the life’s blood of rural America.
W.H. Martin moved to Ottawa in 1899 to serve as an apprentice under photographer E.H. Corwin. Eight years later, Martin purchased Corwin’s studio and began crafting the tall tale postcards that would eventually make him a millionaire.
To fake or not to fake, that is the question…
Since the very inception of photography people have been making “fake” photographs. Indeed, one of the very first self-portraits ever taken, Hippolyte Bayard’s Le Noyé [The Drowned Man], made on October 18, 1840, is of the artist experimenting, using himself as a subject, posing himself in a fake suicide, expressing frustration “about his position in the photography world and about how little respect he felt he had been given in comparison to fellow photographer Louis Daguerre.”
There are many photographs pre digital manipulation that can be seen as “fake”1 but to me this is a disingenuous word, a sensationalist word, to describe photographs that basically undermine the photograph and its link to truth, the link of the photograph to the indexicality of its referent. But what is “truth” in a photograph?
Photographs have always deceived,2 depending on where you place the camera, which point of view you decide to capture and which to exclude, and when you decide to press the shutter … or what collage of photographs you put together and in what order. Thus, from one point of view, there is no such thing as a fake photograph, just different versions of (de)constructed realities.
Conversely you could argue that ALL photographs are “fake” as the photograph is only, can only ever be, a symbolic representation of a reality that never existed in the first place (“Ceci n’est pas une pipe”).
Photographs are tricky little things.
In the case of this exhibition, early photo collages and photomontages are seen as “fake” only in terms of their relation to a certain version of a photographic reality. They are not fake in terms of the reality of their construction, produced in the IMAGINATION of the artist, expressed in the final image. In those terms they are as real as the surrealist interpretation of dreams, or cubist dissection of the image plane. And we don’t call those photographs or paintings “fake”.
Today, photography is delimited in terms of what a photograph can be. And it has been so since the very beginning of the medium if only we look hard enough. Dreams or nightmares, impossible, absurd or humorous scenes, believable and unbelievable: there is no such thing as genuine or fake – only the space between – expressed in pictorial compositions governed by the creativity and breadth of your imagination.
2/ “Fake” describes something not genuine, real, or authentic, intended to look like something else to deceive, cheat, or pretend.
. Many thankx to the Rijksmuseum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“… photomontage is the fabrication of a composite but single image made up of a number of distinct photographic parts. It “results from the association of photographic elements, which have diverse origins, natures and proportions, combined in such a way as to express with force a particular idea.””
José Pierre, “Hannah Höch et le photomontage des Dadaists berhnois,” in Techniques Graphiques, no. 66 (November – December 1966), p. 352 quoted in Robert A. Sobieszek. “Composite Imagery and the Origins of Photomontage, Part 1: The Naturalistic Strain,” in Artforum, Vol. 17, No. 1, September 1978 on the Artforum website [Online] Cited 18/02/2026
Installation views of the exhibition FAKE! At the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, February – May, 2026 Photos: Albertine Dijkema/Rijksmuseum
Leonard de Koningh (Dutch, 1810-1887) Man startled by his own reflection c. 1870-1880 Cartes de visite
In this comical memento mori, where a man comes face to face with his ghost, the painter and photographer Leonard de Koningh exposed just half of the photographic plate, then had the subject adopt a different pose before exposing the other half. Photography might have been a relatively new art, but the transition between the two images is imperceptible. “It’s like a magician,” marvels Rooseboom. “You know you are being tricked, but you don’t know how the photographer does it.” Quoting Oscar Gustave Rejlander, a trailblazer for this type of composite printing, the photographer Robert Sobieszek (1943-2005) stated: “This manner of working led not to falsehood but to truth. An image made by a single negative [claimed Rejlander] ‘is not true, nor will it ever be so – the focus cannot be everywhere’.”
Anonymous photographer Daydream c. 1870-1890 Cartes de visite
In this one we see the present: a woman and her partner both with the tools of their trades; and an imagined future: her daydream of becoming a mother. The image, explains Rooseboom, was “a darkroom trick”, achieved by shielding part of the photographic paper from the light and then adding a second negative to it later. Such images took photography into a new dimension, suggesting the innermost thoughts of their subjects, and paving the way for the comic strips of the future with their speech bubbles and thought clouds.
“We still expect photography to bring the truth, but this idea only really emerged from the illustrated magazines of the 1930s in order to inform readers how things worked elsewhere in the world,” says Rooseboom. Until then, the creative freedom to alter the image was unchallenged. “Anything possible would be tried out and produced,” he says. “There was no ethical restraint on producing non-realistic images. No-one would forbid you from doing this.” Removing and moving someone’s head, for example, presented the photographer with a pleasing puzzle. In the case of this cabinet card – a style of print mounted on card had taken over from the smaller carte de visite by the 1880s – with its black humour, the creative mission was highly successful. Only the positioning of the curtain, that would have concealed the original head, and some light retouching visible under a microscope, offer clues to how the photographer created the deception.
Anonymous photographer Photomontage of a man pushing a wheelbarrow containing a head c. 1900 – c. 1910 Gelatin silver print
This photomontage, created from two negatives, was found in a French photo album, and featured in the science magazine La Nature. Here, the displaced head illusion goes a step further as the photographer plays with scale, prefiguring the Surrealist movement which gathered pace as the century unrolled, disrupting conventional shapes and sizes to create confusing, dreamlike scenes. The open doorway provides a conveniently plain, dark background in which to smuggle in the cut-and-pasted portion before re-photographing the image as a whole. Some of these images were most likely purchased as portraits to show others, to see their look of surprise. “It’s hard to see where the trick starts and ends,” says Rooseboom. “This is showing off. Something is unbelievable, impossible, it’s improbable, but still it’s there in a photographic image which suggests we see a real scene that really unfolded in front of the camera.”
Almost immediately after the invention of the medium people began manipulating photographs – some with scissors and glue, others through ingenious photographic techniques. Drawing on more than 50 historical images from the museum’s own collection, the exhibition FAKE! Early Photo Collages and Photomontages, shows how image manipulation developed – from the birth of photography to the Second World War – and explores the motives behind it. The exhibition runs from 6 February to 25 May 2026 in the Photo Gallery of the Rijksmuseum.
“Many photo collages and composites depict impossible, absurd or humorous scenes that no one would have mistaken for reality. Yet even then, the boundary between genuine and fake, believable and unbelievable, was often hard to see.” ~ Hans Rooseboom, Curator of Photography
Cut and paste
The exhibition covers 1860-1940, a period when the possibilities of cutting and pasting photographs were widely explored. People also started experimenting with other methods of image manipulation. One trick that became popular shortly after the invention of photography was to show the same person twice in a single image: first, one half of the plate was exposed; then the subject would move, strike a different pose, and the other half of the plate was exposed. This technique was mostly used for harmless visual jokes, purely for entertainment, but the exhibition also shows how it was sometimes employed with very serious intent.
Political protest
Exaggeration, humour and incongruous visual combinations also played a major role in political protest. The best-known creator of political photo composites is John Heartfield (pseudonym of Helmut Herzfeld, 1891-1968), who opposed Hitler’s Nazi movement. Several examples of his work appear in the exhibition.
Press release from the Rijksmuseum
P. Michaelis (Berlin, publisher) Man and woman with briefcase and three babies above Hamburg c. 1900-1910 Postcard
Martin Post Card Company (American) Taking our Geese to market 1908 Postcard Rijksmuseum Purchase 2019
The trend for playing with images of impossible proportions spawned a genre known as “Exaggerations” or “Tall Tales”. This US photograph was printed during the “Golden Age” of picture postcards, shortly after the US decreed that messages could be written on the address side of the card. We see again the pioneering role photo manipulation plays in artistic developments such as Surrealism, but the use of scale here is also a marketing ploy to create myths about the agricultural superiority of a region. In this case, it’s the celebrated stuffed geese of Watertown, Wisconsin. Elsewhere in the show, Nebraska boasts about its bountiful produce with an ear of corn the length of a horse-drawn carriage. As US author and folklorist Roger Welsch noted in Tall Tale Postcards (1976): “Photography brought into being visual effects that tall-tale tellers through the centuries had seen only in their fertile imaginations.”
William H. Martin, (1865 – c. 1940) also known by the nickname “Dad“, was an American photographer and postcard designer known for using photomontage to depict exaggerated scenes with out-of-scale plants and animals. His works featured fanciful depictions of the American frontier inspired by tall tales. His depictions of abundant crops and large livestock served to humorously parody the struggles of farmers in the Midwestern United States who faced drought. They also mocked the exaggerated promises of fertile land and abundant livestock that companies used to lure settlers to the West. Martin was a pioneer of the art form of collage in the United States, and is considered to be the “father” of the exaggeration postcard genre.
Martin was originally from Maple City, Kansas. and was born in 1865. When he was 21 years old, he moved to Ottawa, Kansas to study under the photographer E.H. Corwin. He had no prior experience in photography. He proved successful, and bought Corwin’s photography studio in 1894.
He used photomontage and trick photography and, in 1908, began producing wildly exaggerated postcards for commercial sale. His cards typically featured out-of-scale scenes with people alongside giant plants and animals, created by cutting and pasting together different photographs. His postcards were popular with Western settlers, who sent them back to their families in the Eastern United States. His business was successful, and by 1909 he had built a two-story business building behind his home and employed around 20 people, who produced around 10,000 postcards every day. His photographs proved so popular that they were often plagiarised by other postcard companies and sold under different names.
Theodor Eismann (publisher) (Leipzig, Germany) Car flying over Mulberry Bend Park, New York before 1908 Postcard Rijksmuseum Purchase 2025
Eismann established the company in Leipzig around 1884 and was instrumental in the pre-World War I postcard boom in Germany for the U.S. market. Theochrom was name given to the printing process used.
Fake photographs activated the imagination, presenting imagined possibilities yet to come. This example of a toekomstbeeld (vision of the future) envisages a world where cars could fly. Elsewhere in the exhibition we see futuristic cityscapes: town centres transformed by sky rails and zeppelins thanks to some deft copy and pasting, and skyborne visitors floating over Boston, Hamburg and The Hague in scenes reminiscent of Mary Poppins. Eismann’s New York photomontage [above] now features colour but is no more truthful, its limited range of inks added during the printing process at the whim of the designer.
Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr. (American, 1863-1932) Collision between a car and a steamroller 1915 Tall-tales postcard (exaggerated postcard) Waupun catalog no. P126
We’ve come to think of photo trickery as something sinister, but in his research on its use in early photography, Rooseboom says he was surprised to find that “three-quarters of all the images were made for fun”. In this photomontage by Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr, the clever placement of a series of individual − sometimes overlapping − images provides a humorous snapshot in time. The unusually dynamic, action-filled scene features flying coattails and frilly bloomers as the passengers of a car are catapulted through the air, inviting a before-and-after narrative in the mind of the viewer. “Many photomontages obviously depict impossible situations,” states a text at the exhibition. “The intention was not to mislead, but rather to entertain the viewer.”
Alfred and Elizabeth were living at 315 South Madison Street (in Dodge County) and their son Stanley – who was now going by his middle name – and wife Myrtie were living at 315 North Madison Street (in Fond du Lac County), with their son Alfred S. (the III), who was less than a year old. The Johnson photo studio/gallery was then located at 11-17 North Madison, just off Main Street. This was only a few years after Stanley began producing his tall-tale postcards, probably assisted by his wife, Myrtie, who was listed in the 1905 State Census as being a “photographer” and the 1910 Census as a “photo retoucher.” Although he apparently was known locally by the name of Stanley, he used the name “Alfred Stanley Johnson, Jr.” on most of his postcards.
Stanley Johnson, Sr. died December 3, 1914, and his wife Elizabeth died December 9, 1919; both are buried in the family plot in Forest Mound Cemetery in Waupun. Stanley continued in the photo business at 11 North Madison Street – while living at 17 N. Madison – until a few years before his death on March 1, 1932. His obituary in the Waupun Leader News stated that he had “been in poor health for about 30 years,” which would have been since about the time he started creating his exaggerated postcards. Perhaps the cards provided the extra income needed to pay ongoing medical bills.
Anonymous. “Johnson, Alfred Stanley,” on the Wisconsin Historical Society website Nd [Online] 18/02/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Elsie Wright (British, 1901-1988) and Frances Griffiths (British, 1907-1986) Fairy Offering Flowers to Iris 1920 From the Cottingley Fairies series Gelatin silver print
The Cottingley Fairies are the subject of a hoax which purports to provide evidence of the existence of fairies. They appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 9. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Doyle was enthusiastic about the photographs, and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of supernatural phenomena. Public reaction was mixed; some accepted the images as genuine, others believed that they had been faked.
Interest in the Cottingley Fairies gradually declined after 1921. Both girls married and lived abroad for a time after they grew up, and yet the photographs continued to hold the public imagination. In 1966 a reporter from the Daily Express newspaper traced Elsie, who had by then returned to the United Kingdom. Elsie left open the possibility that she believed she had photographed her thoughts, and the media once again became interested in the story.
Albert Huyot (French, 1872-1968) Photo collage 1929
The cutting up of images and rearranging them on paper with glue was once a popular pastime. People made celebrity photo quizzes, sometimes featuring just a nose or a pair of eyes; and the photographed faces of friends and family were superimposed onto drawings for comic effect. Photo collages were also undertaken by established artists. In this piece, which is influenced by Dadaism and Cubism, French artist Albert Huyot manipulates fragments of photographic images into surprising new artistic forms. More intricate photographic artworks can be seen in the show on the pages of the Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy’s seminal book Painting, Photography, Film (1925). In it he argues that photography is not just about recording reality. Instead, it should explore the visual language unique to its medium.
The son and grandson of artists, Albert Huyot was a pupil of Diogène Maillart and Gustave Moreau. His first paintings were done in a generic Post-Impressionist manner indebted to the example of the Nabis, but he soon became influenced by Cubism. He exhibited regularly at the Salon des Indépendants, the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Tuileries, and also participated in the Grande Exposition in Brussels in 1910; in the same year he also spent some time in Russia. Huyot was a friend of Henri Matisse, and around 1912 his work reveals the influence of Fauvism; André Derain was another particular influence. After 1920, however, Huyot seems to have abandoned the rigour of his earlier work in favour of landscape painting. An exhibition of his work was held at the Galerie Berthe Weill in Paris in 1926.
Text from the Stephen Ongpin Fine Art website
John Heartfield, pseudonym of Helmut Herzfeld (German, 1891-1968) Mimikry, Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (A-I-Z), 19 April 1934 1934
Sometimes, in a surprising twist, photographic trickery was a tool for conveying a perceived truth. Anti-Nazi campaigner Helmut Herzfeld, who changed his name to the anglicised John Heartfield in protest against Hitler’s regime, created over 200 handcrafted political photomontages for the leftist AIZ publication, many seeking to expose the hidden dangers of the Nazi dictatorship and the lies it disseminated. Mimicry depicts Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, disguising Hitler as the 19th-Century revolutionary communist Karl Marx. The artist is warning the working classes not to be fooled by Hitler’s promises that he genuinely supports workers’ rights. Such work is comparable with political memes today that aim to speak truth to power. Image manipulation can both mislead us and help us find our way.
![Installation view of the exhibition 'Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination' at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 - July 2026 showing at left, Malick Sidibé 'Nuit de Noël' (Happy Club) [Christmas Eve] 1963; and at second left, Malick Sidibé 'Regardez-Moi' [Look at Me!] 1962](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ideas_of_africa_installation_d.jpg "Installation view of the exhibition 'Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination' at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 - July 2026 showing at left, Malick Sidibé 'Nuit de Noël' (Happy Club) [Christmas Eve] 1963; and at second left, Malick Sidibé 'Regardez-Moi' [Look at Me!] 1962")
![Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936–2016) 'Nuit de Noël' (Happy Club) [Christmas Eve] 1963 (printed January 2006)](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sidibe-nuit-de-noel.jpg "Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936–2016) 'Nuit de Noël' (Happy Club) [Christmas Eve] 1963 (printed January 2006)")
![Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936–2016) 'Regardez-Moi' [Look at Me!] 1962 (printed January 2006)](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/malick-sidibe-regardez-moi.jpg "Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936–2016) 'Regardez-Moi' [Look at Me!] 1962 (printed January 2006)")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Painter [Heinrich Hoerle]' 1928, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/sander-maler_hoerle-web.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Painter [Heinrich Hoerle]' 1928, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Painter [Marta Hegemann]' c. 1925, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/august-sander-painter-marta-hegemann.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Painter [Marta Hegemann]' c. 1925, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Painter [Willi Bongard]' 1922-1925, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-painter-willi-bongard.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Painter [Willi Bongard]' 1922-1925, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Philosopher [Max Scheler]' c. 1925, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-philosopher-max-scheler.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Philosopher [Max Scheler]' c. 1925, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Political Prisoner [Erich Sander]' 1941-1944, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-political-prisoner-b.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Political Prisoner [Erich Sander]' 1941-1944, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Political Prisoner [Erich Sander]' 1943, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-political-prisoner-erich-sander.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Political Prisoner [Erich Sander]' 1943, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Political Prisoner [Marcel Ancelin]' 1943, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-political-prisoner-marcel-ancelin.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Political Prisoner [Marcel Ancelin]' 1943, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'The Architect Couple [Dora und Hans Heinz Lüttgen]' 1926, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-the-architect-couple-dora-und-hans-heinz-luttgen-dora.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'The Architect Couple [Dora und Hans Heinz Lüttgen]' 1926, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'The Dadaist Raoul Hausmann [with Hedwig Mankiewitz and Vera Broïdo]' 1929](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/sander-der_dadaist-web.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'The Dadaist Raoul Hausmann [with Hedwig Mankiewitz and Vera Broïdo]' 1929")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'The Industrialist [Max Spindler]' 1929, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/sander-the-industrialist-1929.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'The Industrialist [Max Spindler]' 1929, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'The Painter Couple [Martha und Otto Dix]' 1925-1926, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/11.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'The Painter Couple [Martha und Otto Dix]' 1925-1926, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Victim of Persecution [Miss Oppenheim]' c. 1938, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-victim-of-persecution-miss-oppenheim.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Victim of Persecution [Miss Oppenheim]' c. 1938, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Victim of Persecution [Margarete (Grete) Trier Oppenheim]' c. 1938, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-victim-of-persecution-margarete-grete-trier-oppenheim.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Victim of Persecution [Margarete (Grete) Trier Oppenheim]' c. 1938, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Victim of Persecution [Mr. Leubsdorf]' c. 1938, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-victim-of-persecution-mr.-leubsdorf.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Victim of Persecution [Mr. Leubsdorf]' c. 1938, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Working Students [Erich Sander, far left; Richard Creutzberg, center left]' 1926, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-working-students.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Working Students [Erich Sander, far left; Richard Creutzberg, center left]' 1926, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Young Photographer [Gunther Sander]' 1929, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-young-photographer-gunther-sander.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Young Photographer [Gunther Sander]' 1929, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Inventor and Dadaist [Raoul Hausmann]' 1929, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-inventor-and-dadaist-raoul-hausmann.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Inventor and Dadaist [Raoul Hausmann]' 1929, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Mother and Daughter [Helene Abelen with Daughter Josepha]' c. 1926, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-mother-and-daughter-helene-abelen-with-daughter-josepha.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Mother and Daughter [Helene Abelen with Daughter Josepha]' c. 1926, printed c. 1990-1999")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'My Wife in Joy and Sorrow [Anna Sander with twins, Sigrid and Helmut Sander]' 1911, printed c. 1990-1999](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/august-sander-my-wife-in-joy-and-sorrow.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'My Wife in Joy and Sorrow [Anna Sander with twins, Sigrid and Helmut Sander]' 1911, printed c. 1990-1999")
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