Exhibition: ‘Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective’ at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 6th October 2023 – 11th February 2024

Curator: Thyago Nogueira, Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo, Brazil

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Yokosuka' 1965

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Yokosuka
1965
From Japan, a Photo Theater
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

 

“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. …

When we turn to our popular culture – which includes the arts – for diversion and meaning, we are confused, oftentimes, by the welter of contradictory impressions. We are trivialized and mesmerized by the pap that is purveyed on the television and radio, and in newspapers and magazines. We take away from our experience with these forms of entertainment a sense of having spent time but not having been taught anything or having been ennobled. We learn without understanding and visualize without seeing.”


John Anson Warner. “Introduction” to The Life & Art of the North American Indian. London: Hamlyn, 1975, p. 6.

 

 

Photography and its discontents

I love Moriyama’s early gritty, surreal, street snap style, high contrast black and white photographs. They possess a certain air, a certain essentialness, established through the artist’s unique aesthetic “famously known by the Japanese phrase ‘are, bure, boke’ (meaning ‘grainy, blurry, out of focus’).” The images are memorable and unforgettable.

I am far lest convinced by Moriyama’s contemporary photographs. His attempts to democratise the image – where he is trying to create something more automatic and where each image becomes of equal importance and meaning – leads to the collective banality of photography. As Diane Smyth observes, “I think he clearly understands that this banality, this horizontality is an essential aspect of photography.”

Instead of a hierarchical system of valuing significant images, Moriyama “rejected the dogmatism of art and the veneration of vintage prints, making the accessible and reproducible aspects of photography its most radical asset.” (Press release)

“Since the 1990s he has used a digital camera to make colour photographs, looking at advertisements in shopping malls and beyond. He is interested in the idea that the image is becoming more present in reality, in certain cases even substituting our reality. His work from the 2000s envelops the architecture of the gallery with vinyls, he makes huge patterns of images that go from floor to ceiling. Of course he’s anticipating our lives completely connected to screens, to these multiple virtual realities of the image which are making and in a way eliminating the real world.”2


As Paul Virlio has observed, images contaminate us like viruses. He suggests that they communicate by contamination, by infection. In our ‘media’ or ‘information’ society we now have a ‘pure seeing’; a seeing without knowing.3 Images “infiltrate our collective consciousness, touching every aspect of our lives. From the advertisements that entice us to purchase particular products, to the news coverage that shapes our understanding of current events, visual imagery surrounds us and leaves an indelible mark on our subconscious. This notion becomes particularly relevant in our increasingly digital age, where images have become the primary vehicle for communication and information dissemination… In an age where images dominate and multiply, the line between reality and its representation blurs.”4

A seeing without knowing… a democracy of the image… the banality of the photograph / photography … the line between reality and its (multiple) representations.

Again, I repeat that I am not convinced by Moriyama’s contemporary photographs. While I understand his investigation into contemporary photographic re/production I am not persuaded by the promiscuity nor by the profundity of his image making. If we look at the installation photographs of Moriyama’s work from Pretty Woman in this exhibition (below) where images go from floor to ceiling I struggle to make sense of this mass of information… and I will struggle to remember any of the images minutes or even seconds after seeing them. None of these photographs leaves an indelible mark on our subconscious. But perhaps that is the point (or just, my point of view).

What makes Moriyama’s early photographs so remarkable is that they are memorable. We remember them because they are iconic, they have a distinctive excellence. The Stray Dog that roaming mongrel staring balefully at us; the surreal Bunuel-like opening of the eye Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Midnight; the fleeing woman in Yokosuka (1970) so much better in black and white.

Moriyama’s black and white photographs provide “a raw, restless vision of city life and the chaos of everyday existence, strange worlds, and unusual characters.” More than that, they plunge us into a mesmerising, hypnotic world where the viewer is immersed in a fractured dream / scape / space… Strange, haunting and evocative, Moriyama’s black and white photographs project the derangement of the world onto the psyche of the viewer, producing an abnormal condition of the mind that promotes a loss of contact with reality.5 This derangement of the world, this re/arrangement of the world and the mind resonates within our subconscious, like harmonics in music. Something that a thousand thousand thousand irrelevant, inconsiderate (not examined, not remembered) photographs can never do.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Diane Smyth. “Behind the scenes of Moriyama’s London takeover,” on the British Journal of Photography website 17 October 2023 [Online] Cited 19/12/2023

2/ Paul Virilio. “The Work of Art in the Electronic Age,” in Block No. 14, Autumn, 1988, pp. 4-7 quoted in McGrath, Roberta. “Medical Police,” in Ten.8 No. 14, 1984 quoted in Watney, Simon and Gupta, Sunil. “The Rhetoric of AIDS,” in Boffin, Tessa and Gupta, Sunil (eds.,). Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology. London: Rivers Osram Press, 1990, p. 143

3/ Herod. “Paul Virilio: ‘Images contaminate us like viruses,” on The Socratic Method website January 2020 [Online] Cited 08/02/2024

4/ Marcus Bunyan commenting on the exhibition Fracture: Daido Moriyama at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on the Art Blart website July 20, 2012 [Online] Cited 08/02/2024


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

 

 

The world is a reality,
not because of the way it is,
but because
of the possibilities it presents.


Frederick Sommer

 

“Forget everything you’ve learned on the subject of photography for the moment, and just shoot. Take photographs – of anything and everything, whatever catches your eye. Don’t pause to think.”

 

“There may remain some fragments of memory still lying in the depths of my experience waiting to be awakened, and they are ready to evoke new memories at any time. Of course, I need to interpose a camera into that place.”

 

“To focus on reality or be concerned with memory, choices that, at first glance, seem opposite are, in fact, identical twins for me.”


Daido Moriyama

 

The retrospective focuses on different moments of Moriyama’s vast and productive career – beginning with his early works for Japanese magazines, interest in the American occupation, and engagement with photorealism. During this time Moriyama also established his unique aesthetic, famously known by the Japanese phrase are, bure, boke (meaning ‘grainy, blurry, out of focus’).

The second part of the exhibition picks up his work from the self-reflexive period in the 1980s and 1990s. In the decades which followed, he explored the essence of photography and of his own self, developing a visual lyricism with which he reflected on reality, memory and cities through tireless documentation and the reinvention of his own archive.

Fittingly, Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective, brings together more than 200 works and large-scale installations, as well as many of Moriyama’s rare photobooks and magazines, for the first time in the UK. One floor of the gallery has been transformed into a reading room – a dedicated space offering a rare opportunity to spend time with his legendary publications.

Text from The Photographers’ Gallery website

 

 

For more than sixty years, Daido Moriyama (森山 大道 b. 1938) has used his camera to interrogate and revolutionise the way we look at the world with his dense, grainy images. Even today, Moriyama’s pioneering artistic spirit and visual intensity remain groundbreaking.

The exhibition traces the path of a photographer who transformed the way we see photography and questioned the very nature of photography itself.

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing at left work from 'Farewell Photography' (1972)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London October 2023 – February 2024 showing at left in the bottom image, work from Farewell Photography (1972).

His 1972 photobook Farewell Photography highlights photography itself, showing edges of discarded film, flecks of dust, and sprocket holes and questioning its role as a medium.

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024

 

Installation views of the exhibition Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London October 2023 – February 2024 showing at left in the bottom image, work from Farewell Photography (1972).

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing work from 'Provoke' (1968-1970)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing work from 'Provoke' (1968-1970)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London October 2023 – February 2024 showing work from Provoke (1968-1970)

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing work from 'Japan, a Photo Theater'

 

Installation view of the exhibition Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London October 2023 – February 2024 showing work from Japan, a Photo Theater

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024

 

Installation view of the exhibition Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London October 2023 – February 2024

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing work from 'A Hunter'

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing work from 'A Hunter'

 

Installation views of the exhibition Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London October 2023 – February 2024 showing work from A Hunter

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing covers of 'Record' magazine top to bottom No's 1-53

 

Installation view of the exhibition Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London October 2023 – February 2024 showing covers of Record magazine top to bottom No’s 1-53

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) From 'Pretty Woman' Tokyo, 2017

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
From Pretty Woman
Tokyo, 2017
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing work from 'Pretty Woman'

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing work from 'Pretty Woman'

Installation view of the exhibition 'Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective' at The Photographers' Gallery, London October 2023 - February 2024 showing work from 'Pretty Woman'

 

Installation views of the exhibition Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, London October 2023 – February 2024 showing work from Pretty Woman

 

 

Curator Thyago Nogueira spent three years working with Moriyama on The Photographers’ Gallery retrospective

What Moriyama is really saying is that it’s in the nature of photography to be reproducible and replicable. He’s against and not interested in the veneration of artworks, he wants photography to be disseminated. It’s one of his most radical ideas. So we’re presenting plenty of pages from the magazines and books, printed, on the gallery walls and for visitors to browse, and have made videos flipping through each of his really rare books. There’s also a whole section dedicated to seeing the original books. It is going to be a very dense show. But we also wanted to break the hierarchy between a framed picture, a printed image, a wallpaper, and a vinyl. So there are all these different and very interesting kinds of images. …

In the 1960s and 70s, he was making extraordinary, beautiful images, capturing Japanese society and this ambiguous feeling towards Westernisation and the erosion of traditional Japanese culture. He was also a very interested in the nature of the language of photography, and all the possibilities that that language could offer. He started to struggle with the idea of photography being a window to the world, and started testing the materiality and the flatness of the image. He worked as a conceptual artist. He was saying, ‘There’s nothing beyond an image, this is just an image’, and to accept that was radically original and beautiful.

But he has continued to move and has become, if anything, more in tune with the times. Since the 1990s he has used a digital camera to make colour photographs, looking at advertisements in shopping malls and beyond. He is interested in the idea that the image is becoming more present in reality, in certain cases even substituting our reality. His work from the 2000s envelops the architecture of the gallery with vinyls, he makes huge patterns of images that go from floor to ceiling. Of course he’s anticipating our lives completely connected to screens, to these multiple virtual realities of the image which are making and in a way eliminating the real world.

Since 2006 he has also published a magazine called Record, where he is photographing every day non-stop, looking at his own neighbourhood and daily life. He’s addressing issues of ego, saying ‘I don’t think artists are more special than anyone else’ and trying to produce something more automatic, and thus democratic. I think he clearly understands that this banality, this horizontality is an essential aspect of photography.

Extract from Diane Smyth. “Behind the scenes of Moriyama’s London takeover,” on the British Journal of Photography website 17 October 2023 [Online] Cited 19/12/2023

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Male actor playing a woman' Tokyo 1966

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Male actor playing a woman
Tokyo 1966
From Japan, a Photo Theater
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

His first monograph, Japan: A Photo Theatre (1968) is an edgy trip through a fast-evolving Tokyo

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Tokyo' 1967

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Tokyo
1967
Asahi Graph, Apr 1967
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) For 'Provoke #2' Tokyo, 1969

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
For Provoke #2
Tokyo, 1969
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Tokyo' 1969

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Tokyo
1969
From Accident, Premeditated or not
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

In 1969 he started a one-year series Accident, published in the magazine Asahi Camera, in which he photographed existing images in the media.

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Tokyo' 1969

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Tokyo
1969
From Accident, Premeditated or not
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

 

The Photographers’ Gallery presents the first UK retrospective of work by the acclaimed Japanese photographer, Daido Moriyama (b. 1938).

Featuring over 200 works, spanning from 1964 until the present day, Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective traverses different moments of Moriyama’s vast and productive career.

Taking over the whole Gallery, this exhibition celebrates one of the most innovative and influential artists and street photographers of our day. Championing photography as a democratic language, Moriyama inserted himself up close with Japanese society, capturing the clash of Japanese tradition with an accelerated Westernisation in post-war Japan. With his non-conformist approach and desire to challenge the medium, his work is tirelessly unpretentious, raw, blurred, radical and grainy and has defined the style of an entire generation.

Moriyama has spent his sixty-year career asking a fundamental question: what is photography? He rejected the dogmatism of art and the veneration of vintage prints, making the accessible and reproducible aspects of photography its most radical asset. Over and over, he reused his photographs in different contexts, experimenting with enlargements, crops and printing. Most of his work was made for printed pages rather than gallery walls. Fittingly, Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective is the first UK exhibition to showcase many of his rare photobooks and magazines.

These publications, dating from early rare editions and out-of-print Japanese magazines to more recent titles, are on show alongside large-scale works and installations. The magazines and photobooks will give visitors unrivalled access to abundant archival and visual material to view, read and discover.

Presented in two phases of Moriyama’s work, Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective starts with Moriyama’s early work for Japanese magazines, his challenging of photojournalism, his experiments in Provoke magazine and the conceptual radicalisation of his photobook Farewell Photography (1972). During this period, he established his unique aesthetic, famously known as, buke, boke (meaning ‘grainy, blurry, out of focus’).

The second part of the exhibition starts in the 1980s, when Moriyama overcame a creative and personal crisis. In the following decades, he explored the essence of photography and of his own self, developing a visual lyricism with which he reflected on reality, memory and history.

Moriyama renewed street photography inside and outside Japan. His wanderings led him to cover miles in Tokyo, Osaka and Hokkaido, but also New York, Paris, São Paulo and Cologne. His work and travels are showcased in Record magazine, which the photographer continues to publish today.

Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective is the product of a three-year research period, and is one of the most comprehensive exhibitions ever mounted of this artist’s work. It is organised by Instituto Moreira Salles in cooperation with the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation.

The accompanying catalogue Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective is published by Prestel, £45.

Press release from The Photographers’ Gallery

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Kanagawa' 1967

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Kanagawa
1967
From A Hunter
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Stray Dog, Misawa' 1971

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Stray Dog, Misawa
1971
From A Hunter
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

7 things to know about Daido Moriyama

Learn more about Moriyama, a name synonymous with avant-garde photography, in this quick guide

Born in 1938 in Osaka, Japan, Moriyama’s photographic journey has been one of constant reinvention, testament to his unrelenting pursuit of the unexpected, chaotic, and the intensely personal.

Here we delve into seven things to know about Moriyama, the subject of the first retrospective of his work in the UK, now on at The Photographers’ Gallery:

1. A lens on post-war Japan

Born in post-war Japan, Daido Moriyama embraced photography as a democratic language, promoted by the mass media industry. His work encapsulates the clash between Japanese tradition and Westernisation, following the US military occupation of Japan after the end of World War II. He saw his camera as a tool for capturing not just images but also the essence of an evolving society, making his photographs a mirror to an era of rapid transformation.

2. Influence of American artists

Moriyama was profoundly influenced by American artists like Andy Warhol and William Klein, as well as novelist and poet Jack Kerouac. Their bold and unconventional styles left a mark on his work. This influence can be seen in his daring approach to photography.

3. Provoke era

Provoke was a Japanese magazine which rejected the glossy commercial imagery and the style of documentary photography. Provoke was part of the photographic movement that arose out of the late 1960s and was motivated by the opposition artists had felt towards the traditional powers of Japan.

Moriyama played a pivotal role in the Provoke era, which saw a radical departure from conventional photography. He, along with other like-minded artists, aimed to free photography from its traditional confines. They believed in creating images that didn’t rely on words for interpretation.

4. Unique aesthetic

Moriyama’s work is known for its distinct style characterised in Japanese by ‘are, bure, boke,’ which translates as ‘grainy, blurry, out of focus’. This unique style challenges the conventional notion of photography and invites us to experience images in a new way.

5. Raw, radical, real approach to photography

Moriyama is a trailblazer in the world of photography, effectively reinventing street photography. He challenged the status quo by rejecting traditional norms and embracing the accessible and reproducible nature of photography as its most radical asset – something he continues to do to this day.

6. Farewell Photography and Record

Photobooks play a critical role in Moriyama’s work – one of his most radical works is Farewell Photography (Shashin yo Sayonara) – a book that pushes the boundaries of photographic reality. Moriyama collected rejected images, discarded photos, and even odd negatives to create a chaotic yet thought-provoking sequence of grainy, cropped, solarised, and scratched images. This work is a rebellion against conventional photography.

Magazines were also Moriyama’s fertile ground for photographic production and debates. His journey through photography can be seen in his ongoing publication, Record magazine. It’s a diary of his life in cities, a place where he explores his obsessions, insecurities, and memories. Flip through its pages, and you’ll experience an intimate glimpse into Moriyama’s life.

7. What is Photography?

Moriyama has spent his career asking a fundamental question: “What is photography?”

He rejected the dogmatism of art and the fetishisation of vintage prints, instead embracing the accessible and reproducible aspects of photography as its most radical asset.

Text from The Photographers’ Gallery website

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Harumi, Chūō' Tokyo, 1970

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Harumi, Chūō
Tokyo, 1970
Weekly Playboy, Oct 1970
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Yokosuka' 1970

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Yokosuka
1970
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

Daido Moriyama. 'Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Midnight 1986'

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Midnight
1986
From Letter to St-Loup 1990
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Labyrinth' 2012

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Labyrinth
2012
© Daido Moriyama/Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Cover of Record No. 8' Published 2007

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Cover of Record No. 8
Published 2007
Tokyo: Akio Nagasawa Publishing

 

 

“It was 34 years ago, back in 1972, that I came out with the self-published photo journal ‘Kiroku.’ At the time, I was busy with all sorts of work for magazines. Partly because of a daily feeling inside that I shouldn’t let myself get carried away by it all, I came up with the idea of a small, self-published personal photo journal. Without any ties to work or any fixed topic, I just wanted to continue publishing a 16-page booklet with an arbitrary selection of favourite photos among the pictures I snapped from day to day. By nature, it was directed first and foremost to myself rather than other people. I wanted a simple, basic title, so I called it ‘Kiroku’ (record). However, the publication of ‘Kiroku’ sadly ended with issue number five. Now, thanks to the willpower and efforts of Akio Nagasawa, ‘Kiroku’ the magazine has resumed publication. Or rather, we should call it a fresh publication. With the hope that it will continue this time, I am selfishly thinking of asking Mr. Nagasawa to publish ‘Kiroku’ at a pace of four issues per year. I happily accept his proposal and look forward now to embarking on a new ‘voyage of recording.'”

~ Daido Moriyama

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Cover of Record No. 48' Published September, 2021

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Cover of Record No. 48
Published September, 2021
Tokyo: Akio Nagasawa Publishing

 

A few days ago in the evening, I suddenly felt the urge to take a train to Yokosuka. It was already after 8 PM when I arrived in the “Wakamatsu Market” entertainment district behind Yokosuka Chuo Station on the Keihin Line, but due to the ongoing pandemic, the lights of the normally crowded shops were all switched off. The streets at night had turned into a bleak, dimly lit place, with the usual drunken crowd nowhere in sight. I eventually held my camera into the darkness and shot a dozen or so pictures, while walking quite naturally down the main street toward the “Dobuita-dori” district. However, most of the shops here were closed as well, and only a few people passed by. It was a truly sad and lonely sight.

“Little wonder,” I muttered to myself, considering that more than half a century had passed since the time I wandered with the camera in my hand around Yokosuka, right in the middle of the Vietnam War.

It was here in Yokosuka that I decided to devote myself to the street snap style, so the way I captured the Yokosuka cityscape defined the future direction of my photographic work altogether. I was 25 at the time, and was still in my first year as an independent photographer. I remember how determined and ambitious I was when I started shooting, eager to carry my pictures into the Camera Mainichi office and get them published in the magazine. It was a time when I spent my days just clicking away while walking around with the camera in my hand, from Yokosuka out into the suburbs, from the main streets into the back alleys.

I had been familiar with the fact that Yokosuka was a US military base since I was a kid, and it also somehow seemed to suit my own constitution, so I think my dedication helped me overcome the fearfulness that came on the flip side of the fun that was taking photos in Yokosuka.

These are the results of a mere two days of shooting, but somewhere between the changing faces of Yokosuka, and my own response from the position of a somewhat cold and distant observer in the present, I think they are reflecting the passage of time, and the transformations of the times.

~ Afterword by Daido Moriyama

 

 

The Photographers’ Gallery
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W1F 7LW

Opening hours:
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Thursday – Friday: 10.00 – 20.00
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Exhibition: ‘Noir & Blanc: une esthétique de la photographie’ at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), François-Mitterrand, Paris

Exhibition dates: 17th October 2023 – 21st January 2024

 

Benjamin Brecknell Turner (English, 1815-1894) 'North Side of Quadrangle, Arundel Castle' 1852-1854

 

Benjamin Brecknell Turner (English, 1815-1894)
North Side of Quadrangle, Arundel Castle
1852-1854
Negative photograph on paper
29.7 x 39.6cm
BnF, department of Prints and Photography, RES PHOTO EI-6-BOITE FOL B (n° 3)
Gift of André and Marie-Thérèse Jammes, 1960

 

 

What a lovely exhibition to start the year 2024 on Art Blart.

My favourite photographs in the posting: three beautiful fashion photographs by Frères Séeberger; a stunning late Atget Parc de Sceaux, Duchess Alley (between 1925 and 1927, below) in which you can feel the crispness in the air of the early winter morning; and the glorious seascapes of Gustave Le Gray, probably the best (and most atmospheric) photographer of the sea in all time.

In this posting we observe how black and white photographs are never just black and white but full of different hues and colours. These colour variations tell us a lot about the perception of the image.

As the exhibition text notes: “The strength of the blacks and whites, the variations of hues influence our perception of the image: the more contrasted it is, the more readable it is for our eye saturated with absolute blacks and whites; the more nuanced it is, the more sensitive the distance of time becomes.”

As we enter a new year, another year further away from the origin of the light captured in these photographs, the sensitivity of early photographers and their ability to displace time continues to entrance the viewer.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Noir & Blanc: Une esthétique de la photographie

Black and white is inseparable from the history of photography: its developments, from the end of the 19th century to today, have revealed its plastic force. While the use of colour intensified from the 1970s, black and white reinvented itself as a means of assertive aesthetic expression emphasising graphics and material. Black and white photography remains less expensive and simpler, but its persistence to this day can be explained above all by the fact that it has come to embody the very essence of photography. It appears to carry a universal, timeless, even memorial dimension, where colour would be the sole translation of the contemporary world.

The National Library of France holds one of the richest photographic collections in the world with some six million prints, these are particularly representative of this abundant history of black and white photography.

 

Benjamin Brecknell Turner (English, 1815-1894) 'Arbre le long d'une clotûre' (Tree along a fence) 1852-1854

 

Benjamin Brecknell Turner (English, 1815-1894)
Arbre le long d’une clotûre (Tree along a fence)
1852-1854
Negative photograph on paper
23.5 x 27.3cm
BnF, department of Prints and Photography, RES PHOTO EI-6-BOITE FOL B (n° 3)
Gift of André and Marie-Thérèse Jammes, 1960

 

Photography on paper, with its speed and precision, revolutionised image production in the mid-19th century. The prerequisite is the production of a negative then of the same size as the print. The first negatives are on paper. Reversing the values of blacks and whites, they offer an unknown vision of the world. These oppositions, inverted or not, are the basis of the aesthetics of photography.

 

One of the earliest British amateur photographers, Benjamin Brecknell Turner (1815-1894) was experimenting with photography barely ten years after the invention of the medium. He exhibited widely during his lifetime and is best known for his beautiful photographs of 19th-century England, picturesque ruins and rural scenes.

A founder member of the Photographic Society of London, Turner contributed to the rapid technical and aesthetic development of photography in the 1850s. Our collection includes a unique album compiled by Turner, ‘Photographic Views from Nature’, containing some of the earliest photographs made in and around the counties of Worcestershire, Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Yorkshire, alongside the radical modern architecture of the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park.

Text from the V&A website

 

The origins of black and white

Before the invention of colour photography by the Lumière brothers in 1903, one might believe that all photography was black and white. The reality is more complex: the early days were more those of a varied range of values where pure blacks and whites were the exception and so-called sepia tones were the most common. The negative / positive process patented by the Englishman Fox Talbot in 1841 makes it possible to multiply the prints on paper and therefore to vary the shades.

Certain subjects play on oppositions: the mountain views of the Bisson brothers, the Great Wave by Gustave Le Gray, the portraits of the prolific amateur Blancard.

 

Désiré Charnay (French, 1828-1915) 'Chichen Itza: Bas-relief des Tigres, Palais du Cirque' (Chichen Itza: Bas-relief of the Tigers, Circus Palace) 1859-1861

 

Désiré Charnay (French, 1828-1915)
Chichen Itza: Bas-relief des Tigres, Palais du Cirque (Chichen Itza: Bas-relief of the Tigers, Circus Palace)
1859-1861
Print on gold-toned albumen paper from a collodion glass negative
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, RES PHOTO VZ-940-FT4

 

In 1861, Charnay gave Napoleon III a copy of the album American Ruins composed for the Emperor of expensive proofs on albumen paper toned with gold, in an exceptional format, the miraculous result of his Mexican epic. The shift to gold accentuates the vigour of the contrasts and brings a cold tone to the blacks.

 

Désiré Charnay (French, 1828-1915) 'Uxmal: détail de la façade dite de la couleuvre' (Uxmal: detail of the so-called snake facade) 1859-1861

 

Désiré Charnay (French, 1828-1915)
Uxmal: détail de la façade dite de la couleuvre (Uxmal: detail of the so-called snake facade)
1859-1861
From the album American Ruins
Print on gold-toned albumen paper from a collodion glass negative
59 x 78.2cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, RES PHOTO VZ-940-FT4

 

The forty-nine views of the ruins of Yucatan, Chiapas, Tabasco and the province of Oaxaca constitute the first set of photographs entered into the collections of the Geographical Society, in 1861. During the general assembly of November 29 , Charnay presents his collection of photographs exhibited in the meeting room. The same day, at the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, Jomard returns to the quality of Charnay’s photographs, which allow us to conclude that American art – the Egyptologist’s supreme tribute – “deserves a place alongside Assyrian art, and even alongside the art of the Egyptians.”

 

Bisson frères. Louis-Auguste (French, 1814-1876) and Auguste-Rosalie (French, 1826-1900) 'La crevasse (départ) sur le chemin du grand plateau, ascension du Mont-Blanc' (The crevasse (departure) on the way to the grand plateau, ascent of Mont-Blanc) 1862

 

Bisson frères. Louis-Auguste (French, 1814-1876) and Auguste-Rosalie (French, 1826-1900)
La crevasse (départ) sur le chemin du grand plateau, ascension du Mont-Blanc (The crevasse (departure) on the way to the grand plateau, ascent of Mont-Blanc)
1862
Print on albumen paper from a wet collodion glass negative
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, EO-14 (3)-FOL

 

In 1861, the Bisson brothers managed to hoist their photographic equipment to the summit of Mont Blanc. Mountaineering feat, photographic feat: in these extreme conditions, the plate must be sensitised just before use and developed as soon as possible. The violence of the contrasts, when the brightness of the snow juxtaposes the black of the rocks, redoubles this technical challenge. This conquest of the limit is crowned by the harmony of the print, carried by a site with spectacular aesthetic qualities.

 

 

This exhibition brings together black and white masterpieces from the photographic collections of the National Library of France. Nadar, Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Willy Ronis, Helmut Newton, Diane Arbus, Mario Giacomelli, Robert Frank, William Klein, Daido Moriyama, Valérie Belin…: the big names in French and international photography are brought together in a journey which presents approximately 300 prints and embraces 150 years of history of black and white photography, from its origins in the 19th century to contemporary creation.

Black and white is inseparable from the history of photography: its developments, from the end of the 19th century to today, have revealed its plastic force. While the use of colour intensified from the 1970s, black and white reinvented itself as a means of assertive aesthetic expression emphasising graphics and material. Black and white photography remains less expensive and simpler, but its persistence to this day can be explained above all by the fact that it has come to embody the very essence of photography. It appears to carry a universal, timeless, even memorial dimension, where colour would be the sole translation of the contemporary world.

 

The exhibition in brief

The exhibition addresses the question of black and white from an aesthetic, formal and sensitive angle, emphasising the modes of image creation: plastic and graphic effects of contrasts, play of shadows and lights, rendering of materials in all the palette of values from black to white. The emphasis was placed on photographers who concentrated and systematised their artistic creation in black and white, experimented with its possibilities and limits or made it the very subject of their photography such as Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Ralph Gibson, Mario Giacomelli or Valérie Belin. Particular attention was paid to the quality of the prints, the variety of techniques and photographic papers, but also to the printing of black and white, books and magazines having long been the main relay to the public for photographic creation .

The exhibition thus shows the richness and extent of the BnF’s photographic collections. Among the richest in the world with some six million prints, these are particularly representative of this abundant history of black and white photography.

Exhibition co-organised with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais

 

Commissariat

Sylvie Aubenas, director of the Prints and Photography department, BnF
Héloïse Conésa, head of the photography department, responsible for contemporary photography at the Department of Prints and Photography, BnF
Flora Triebel, curator in charge of 19th century photography at the Department of Prints and Photography, BnF
Dominique Versavel, curator in charge of modern photography at the Department of Prints and Photography, BnF

Text from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

 

Hippolyte Blancard (French, 1843-1924) 'Mademoiselle L. Vulliemin, à mi-corps, la tête couverte d’un chapeau' (Miss L. Vulliemin, half-length, head covered with a hat) 1889

 

Hippolyte Blancard (French, 1843-1924)
Mademoiselle L. Vulliemin, à mi-corps, la tête couverte d’un chapeau (Miss L. Vulliemin, half-length, head covered with a hat)
1889
Platinum print from a gelatin-silver bromide glass negative
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, EO-508-PET FOL
Gift of print dealer Maurice Rousseau, 1944

 

Amateur photographer, wealthy pharmacist enriched by the sale of digestive pills, Blancard creates a prolific and picturesque work in a superb contrast of black and white thanks to the use of platinum. This expensive process, patented in 1873, ensures stable prints with marked contrasts which do not stifle the rendering of halftones.

 

Émile Zola (French, 1840-1902) 'Denise et Jacques, les enfants d'Émile Zola' (Denise and Jacques, the children of Émile Zola) 1898 or 1899

 

Émile Zola (French, 1840-1902)
Denise et Jacques, les enfants d’Émile Zola (Denise and Jacques, the children of Émile Zola)
1898 or 1899
Gelatin aristotype, gelatin aristotype on matte velvety paper with toning, cyanotype, silver print, gelatin aristotype toned with gold, collodion aristotype with toning
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, NZ-214-8
Purchase at public sale, 2017

 

From 1894, the novelist devoted himself with passion to photography, in an intimate vein. Here he tests the effects of his shooting by varying the papers, the processes, the tones based on the same negative on a glass plate. We see that black and white is a monochromy among others (brown, orange, blue). Very few of these test prints created in the privacy of the photographer’s laboratory have reached us; the collection of these six prints is exceptional.

 

Frères Séeberger. Jules, Louis and Henri Séeberger (French, 1872-1932; 1874-1946; 1876-1956) 'Untitled' 1909-1912

 

Frères Séeberger. Jules, Louis and Henri Séeberger (French, 1872-1932; 1874-1946; 1876-1956)
Untitled
1909-1912
Silver print on baryta paper
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, OA-38 (1)-BOITE FOL
Acquisition-donation from the family, 1976

 

Frères Séeberger. Jules, Louis and Henri Séeberger (French, 1872-1932; 1874-1946; 1876-1956) 'Untitled' 1909-1912

 

Frères Séeberger. Jules, Louis and Henri Séeberger (French, 1872-1932; 1874-1946; 1876-1956)
Untitled
1909-1912
Silver print on baryta paper
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, OA-38 (1)-BOITE FOL
Acquisition-donation from the family, 1976

 

For almost half a century, the Séeberger brothers, specialising in fashion reporting, captured elegant women in their natural settings, racecourses, palaces, upscale beaches. The print on baryta paper, used here, marks a technical breakthrough. A layer of pure white barium sulfate is now interposed between the print support and the binder layer, where the image is formed. Manufactured industrially from the 1890s, chemically developed baryta papers and their characteristic cold tone would dominate silver production until the 1970s.

 

Frères Séeberger. Jules, Louis and Henri Séeberger (French, 1872-1932; 1874-1946; 1876-1956) 'Untitled' 1909-1912

 

Frères Séeberger. Jules, Louis and Henri Séeberger (French, 1872-1932; 1874-1946; 1876-1956)
Untitled
1909-1912
Silver print on baryta paper
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, OA-38 (1)-BOITE FOL
Acquisition-donation from the family, 1976

 

 

In Black and White

Entirely designed from the Library’s rich collections, Black & White: An aesthetic of photography presents more than 300 works from the 19th century to the present day which bear witness to the use black and white from more than 200 photographers from around the world.

Considering black and white photographic creation from the 19th century to the most contemporary works, the exhibition presented at the François-Mitterrand affirms an ambition commensurate with the historical and geographical scope of the BnF’s collections and their immense variety technical and stylistic. The Department of Prints and photography has been a high place of conservation and emulation for monochrome photographic expression, under the impetus in particular of Jean-Claude Lemagny. Recently deceased, this very first curator of photography contemporary, in office from 1968 to 1996, was a fervent defender of black and white aesthetics.

In the 19th century, the powerlessness of photography to reproduce colours do not reduce it only to black and white and the tonal variations (blue, sepia, etc.) are in fact multiple. The exhibition opens with a spectacular monochrome of prints by Émile Zola, alongside luxurious prints by Gustave Le Gray, by Désiré Charnay and the Bisson brothers. It is at the turn of the 20th century that black and white became the tonality of photography par excellence, with the generalisation of the gelatin-silver bromide process.

 

An artistic and aesthetic approach

The rest of the journey deliberately interweaves creations of the 20th and 21st centuries, without chronological consideration. According to a primarily artistic and aesthetic approach to black and white, works of authors, decades, styles, schools and various origins interact, in order to highlight visual constants and graphics observable in use by black and white by photographers from 37 countries. That the photographers either suffered lack of colour or – from the 1950s-1970s – preferred to it, black and white is appreciated by artists for its numerous graphic, material and symbolic, which allow them to obtain certain effects features.

 

Write in black and white

These are these different ways of writing in black and white that the exhibition shows, starting with the contrasts: prints by Imogen Cunningham and André Kertész at the sculptural portraits of black women by Valérie Belin, in passing through the photograms of Man Ray, the books of William Klein or the fashion photographs of Helmut Newton, the contrast is deliberately sought by certain artists. By accentuating blacks and whites, or even making them disappear to any intermediate shade of grey, they bring out the essential lines of their subjects, retrace the design of the world,
gain visual and graphic expressiveness.

The play of shadows and light, at the origins of the photographic act, forms another part of the exhibition highlights. Bringing together the works of photographers as varied as Brassaï, Alexandre Rodtchenko, Henri CartierBresson, Willy Ronis, Flor Garduño, Daido Moriyama, Arthur Tress or Ann Mandelbaum, this part emphasises the dazzling effects or shadows cast, explored by these artists in their portrait practice, of the street snapshot, of the nocturnal shooting or in their laboratory experiments.

The exhibition continues with a chart of tests deployed in ribbon, from the blackest to the whitest. These prints signed Jun Shiraoka, Emmanuel Sougez, Edward Weston, Barbara Crane or Israel Ariño recall the ability of black and white to render effects of matter by its infinite variations of grey or, conversely, suggest the overflow or disappearance of all matter.

 

A sensory experience

The journey ends with a paradox with the works of photographers who, like Patrick Tosani, Marina Gadonneix or Laurent Cammal, disturbing the visitor’s perception by using colour processes to represent a black and white subject – an ultimate game with codes inherited from their art. Designed to show the historical depth and the richness of the BnF collections, this exhibition is intended to be educational and sensitive: emphasising certain technical aspects linked to printing practices, while insisting also on the irreducible material part of this art. By the high quality of prints presented, the exhibition offers to the public a sensory experience that will make them perceive the nuances hidden behind this apparently monolithic notion black and white.

Flora Triebel and Dominique Versavel. “En Noir et Blanc,” in Une saison en photographie, Chroniques No. 98, BnF, September – December 2023

 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) 'Parc de Sceaux, Duchess Alley' Between 1925 and 1927

 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Parc de Sceaux, Duchess Alley
Between 1925 and 1927
Print on matte albumen paper from gelatin-bromide glass negative
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, EO-109 (16)-BOITE FOL B

 

Eugène Atget claimed a humble, artisanal practice of photography. He used the same old camera and printing paper for decades. Only the disappearance of his usual supplies forced him to change. There is therefore no aesthetic research, yet these colour variations tell us a lot about the perception of the image.

The photographer artist can choose the colours of his prints by playing on the chemistry of the fixing baths or on the nature of the papers.

Gold toning, known since the 1850s, produces deep blacks but is very expensive. Baryta or platinum papers appeared at the end of the century and made it possible to further accentuate contrasts.

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884) 'Plage de Sainte-Adresse avec les bains Dumont' (Sainte-Adresse beach with Dumont baths) 1856

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)
Plage de Sainte-Adresse avec les bains Dumont (Sainte-Adresse beach with Dumont baths)
1856
Print on albumen paper from a collodion glass negative
31.3 x 41.3cm
Former Alfred Armand collection
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, RESERVE FOL-EO-13 (3)

 

The strength of the blacks and whites, the variations of hues influence our perception of the image: the more contrasted it is, the more readable it is for our eye saturated with absolute blacks and whites; the more nuanced it is, the more sensitive the distance of time becomes.

Provenance

This article was designed as part of the exhibition “Black & White – An aesthetic of photography” presented at the BnF from October 17, 2023 to January 21, 2024.

 

The marines of Le Gray

Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884) is a central figure in 19th century photography. A contemporary of photographers like Nadar, Charles Nègre and Henri Le Secq, he began his career by training as a painter. With great mastery of photographic technique, he developed two major inventions, the collodion glass negative in 1850 and the dry wax paper negative in 1851.

Le Gray’s seascapes mark not only a milestone in the history of photography, but also its true intrusion into a pictorial genre characteristic of the English school. Fixing the movement of the waves while the snapshot is still stammering, combining two negatives, one for the sky and one for the sea, Le Gray plays like a virtuoso with a complex technique in the service of a lyrical vision, which prefigures marine studies by Courbet in the 1860s-1870s. The success was immense in France and England: these “enchanted paintings” were acquired by crowned heads, aristocrats, artists and art collectors.

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884) 'Vapeur' (Steam) 1856-1857

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)
Vapeur (Steam)
1856-1857
Print on albumen paper from a collodion glass negative
31.3 x 37.2cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, ESERVE FOL-EO-13 (3)

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884) 'Groupe de navires - Sète - Méditerranée - No. 10' (Group of ships - Sète - Mediterranean - No. 10) 1857

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)
Groupe de navires – Sète – Méditerranée – No. 10 (Group of ships – Sète – Mediterranean – No. 10)
1857
Print on albumen paper from a collodion glass negative
29.9 x 41.2cm
Former Alfred Armand collection
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, RESERVE FOL-EO-13 (3)

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884) 'La Vague brisée. Mer Méditerranée No. 15' (The Broken Wave. Mediterranean Sea No. 15) 1857

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)
La Vague brisée. Mer Méditerranée No. 15 (The Broken Wave. Mediterranean Sea No. 15)
1857
Photograph, albumen paper, collodion glass negative
41.7 x 32.5cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, RESERVE FOL-EO-13 (3)

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884) 'La Grande vague - Sète - N° 17' (The Great Wave) 1857

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)
La Grande vague – Sète – N° 17 (The Great Wave)
1857
Photograph, albumen paper, collodion glass negative
35.7 x 41.9 cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, RESERVE FOL-EO-13 (3)

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884) 'Flotte franco-anglaise en rade de Cherbourg' (Franco-English fleet in Cherbourg harbour) August 4-8, 1858

 

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)
Flotte franco-anglaise en rade de Cherbourg (Franco-English fleet in Cherbourg harbour)
August 4-8, 1858
Print on albumen paper from a collodion glass negative
31 x 39.8cm
Former Alfred Armand collection
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, RESERVE FOL-EO-13 (3)

 

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910) 'La Princesse Marie Cantacuzène' (The Princesse Marie Cantacuzène) around 1855-1860

 

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910)
La Princesse Marie Cantacuzène (The Princesse Marie Cantacuzène)
around 1855-1860
Varnished salted paper print from a collodion glass negative
20.8 × 15.3cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, EO-15 (2)-PET FOL

 

Nadar created two portraits of this classically beautiful young woman. It indicates on the back of one of the proofs that it is the Romanian princess, Marie Cantacuzène.

 

The portrait by Félix Nadar

Until the beginning of the 1880s, Félix Nadar’s portraits were distinguished by their neutral backgrounds.

The merit of Mr. Nadar’s portraits does not consist only in the skill of the pose, which is entirely artistic, there is a learned and reasoned arrangement of the light, which attenuates or increases the daylight depending on the character of the head. and the operator’s instinct. We also find in the printing of the proofs a delicate search for harmony and slightly faded tones which soften the edges of the contours with their darkness.

 

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910) 'Bakounine' About 1862

 

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910)
Bakounine
About 1862
Silver print from the original negative on collodion glass
27.1 × 20.6cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, EO-15 (4)-FOL

 

The revolutionary, philosopher and theoretician of socialism Mikhail Bakunin is one of the immense personalities that Nadar photographed during his career and offered to clients in his constantly enriched portrait gallery. We see here a print from 1862, contemporary with the shooting, but there is also a print made twenty years later and finally a print around 1900, brought up to date after heavy retouching. Thus until the end of the activity of the Nadar workshop, the oldest portraits of celebrities were always offered to customers.

 

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910) 'Jean Journet (1799-1861)' 1857

 

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910)
Jean Journet (1799-1861)
1857
Salted paper print from collodion glass negative
27.4 x 21.8cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, EO-15 (9)-PET FOL

 

Jean Journet, nicknamed the Apostle, was a picturesque and eccentric Parisian figure, often ridiculed by his contemporaries. Former carbonaro, pharmacist in Limoux, he discovered the philosophy of Fourier and decided to spread his doctrine by abandoning his family and taking his pilgrim’s staff. His humanitarian evangelism, advocating fraternity and association, led him to write numerous pamphlets which he distributed in an untimely manner: by throwing them from “paradise” into theatres or by laying siege to famous writers and editorial offices. Interned several times in Bicêtre, Journet found upon his death a defender in Nadar who published an article in Le Figaro on October 27, 1861, concluding: “Ah my dear fools! that I love you much better than all these wise men.”

Nadar draws inspiration from Spanish painting from the Golden Age to render “this dazzling head of Saint Peter”.

 

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910) 'Charles Asselineau (1820-1874)' Between 1854 and 1870

 

Félix Nadar (French, 1820-1910)
Charles Asselineau (1820-1874)
Between 1854 and 1870
Print on albumen paper from a collodion glass negative
23.8 x 18.1cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, EO-15 (1)-PET FOL

 

Charles Asselineau is one of Nadar’s oldest friends. They became friends at the Collège Bourbon and were both close friends of Baudelaire. A fine scholar and supernumerary librarian at Mazarine, Charles Asselineau, author of, among other things, Paradis des gens de lettres and L’Enfer du Bibliophile, was close to the publisher Poulet-Malassis, nicknamed by Baudelaire “Coco-mal-perché”. He collaborated with Nadar on two short stories published in April and August 1846: “The Healed Dead” and “The Found Paradise”, reprinted in When I Was a Student. He belonged to the small circle of editors who documented the Pantheon-Nadar to which biographies of each character were originally to be annexed.

He was Nadar’s best man at his wedding… warned, however, two weeks after the ceremony. The groom explained this in a letter: “It’s quite funny that my first witness learned of my marriage 15 days after the consummation and through an announcement letter. This, my good friend, will be explained to you by me on our first trip. I will limit myself to telling you for the present that I went to your house the day before, a Sunday and that on Monday morning at noon time fixed for the ceremony I did not know at 11 o’clock if I was getting married.” (NAF 25007, fol. 8).

 

Alexandre Rodtchenko (Russian, 1891-1956) 'Jeune fille au Leica' (Young girl with Leica) 1934

 

Alexandre Rodtchenko (Russian, 1891-1956)
Jeune fille au Leica (Young girl with Leica)
1934
BnF, prints and photography

 

Piergiorgio Branzi (Italian, 1928-2022) 'Bar sur la plage, Adriatique' (Beach bar, Adriatic) 1957

 

Piergiorgio Branzi (Italian, 1928-2022)
Bar sur la plage, Adriatique (Beach bar, Adriatic)
1957
BnF, prints and photography

 

Willy Ronis (French, 1910-2009) 'Venise' (Venice) 1959

 

Willy Ronis (French, 1910-2009)
Venise (Venice)
1959
BnF, prints and photography

 

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014) 'Kayak, Frankfurt' 1961, printed around 1970

 

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Kayak, Frankfurt
1961, printed around 1970
Silver gelatin print
20 x 25.1cm
BnF, Department of Prints and Photography, EP-91 (1)-FOL
Purchase from the author, 1970
Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
© Estate of Ray K. Metzker

 

A student of Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Metzker sublimates the formal particularities of this school through exceptional mastery black and white: he excels at stylising reality by constructing his images in direct opposition to dark and light flat areas.

 

Mario Giacomelli (Italian, 1925-2000) 'Je n'ai pas de main qui me caresse le visage' (I have no Hands caress my face) 1961-1963

 

Mario Giacomelli (Italian, 1925-2000)
Je n’ai pas de main qui me caresse le visage (I have no Hands caress my face)
1961-1963
BnF, prints and photography

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Portrait d'acteur' (Actor portrait) 1968

 

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Portrait d’acteur (Actor portrait)
1968
From the series Japanese theatre
BnF, prints and photography

 

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985) '1er janvier 1972 à la Martinique' (January 1, 1972 in Martinique) 1972

 

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985)
1er janvier 1972 à la Martinique (January 1, 1972 in Martinique)
1972
BnF, prints and photography

 

Bernard Plossu (French, b. 1945) 'Paris' 1973

 

Bernard Plossu (French, b. 1945)
Paris
1973
BnF, prints and photography

 

Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940-2015) 'Immigrants, Istanbul, Turkey' c. 1977

 

Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940-2015)
Immigrants, Istanbul, Turkey
c. 1977
BnF, prints and photography

 

Koichi Kurita (Japanese, b. 1962) 'Melting Snow on a Rock, Nagano, Japan' 1988

 

Koichi Kurita (Japanese, b. 1962)
Melting Snow on a Rock, Nagano, Japan
1988
BnF, prints and photography

 

Flor Garduño (Mexican, b. 1957) 'Canasta de Luz' (Corbeille de lumière)(Basket of Light) 1989

 

Flor Garduño (Mexican, b. 1957)
Canasta de Luz (Corbeille de lumière)(Basket of Light)
1989
BnF, prints and photography

 

Laurence Leblanc (French, b. 1967) 'Chéa, Cambodge' (Chéa, Cambodia) 2000

 

Laurence Leblanc (French, b. 1967)
Chéa, Cambodge (Chéa, Cambodia)
2000
From the series Rithy Chéa Kim Sour and the others
BnF, prints and photography

 

 

Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand
Quai François Mauriac, 75706 Paris Cedex 13
Phone: +33(0)1 53 79 59 59

Opening hours:
Monday: 2pm – 8pm
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 9am – 8pm
Sunday: 1pm – 7pm

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