(Photography and Publishing in Context)
Ever since the first paper prints were made, there has been an enduring love affair between photography and books. In the 19th century, pictures were published in the form of prints glued into albums. Advances in printing techniques meant that by the 1920s photographs could be printed at the same time as the text. The illustrated press entered its heyday, a period marked in France by the successful magazine VU, regarded as a model of its kind. Other types of media began to emerge; news photos, photo-journalism and propaganda rubbed shoulders with fashion and advertising. Many of these pictures, regardless of their original medium of distribution, were displayed at fairs and exhibitions held all over Europe.
The Second World War saw the end of this trend, and the different types of photographic image began to go their separate ways. Books about cities or countries included illustrative photos; photo-journalism flourished in news magazines; and fashion magazines sought to print ever more inventive images. Few of these photographs ever found their way into museums. Books now became a way for art photographers to obtain recognition for their work, whatever the subject. The Somnambulist (1970) by Ralph Gibson, a book of photos with no accompanying text, is a fine early example of this type of publication. Increased interest in photography since the 1970s has been echoed in exhibitions where these images are displayed independently of the books in which they were originally published.
The projects that have come together in this section of the Month of Photography focus on the history of both famous and less familiar photographs, paying particular attention to the context in which they were created and distributed.
Anne de Mondenard
Artistic coordinator
Henri Cartier-Bresson's Scrapbook
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson
Looking at VU, Photographic Magazine, 1928-1940
Maison Européenne de la Photographie
The Odyssey of an Icon. Three Photographs by André Kertész
Maison Européenne de la Photographie
A Visual Weapon. Soviet Photomontages 1917-1953
Passage de Retz
Heartfield. Photomontages
Galerie 1900 / 2000
Roman Vishniac. The World that Disappeared
Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme
Things As They Are. Photojournalism and the Press,
1955-2005
Passage du Désir
Portraits of Che. Cuban Prints, 1959-1964
Galerie / Librairie Plantureux
Edouard Boubat, Jean-Philippe Charbonnier and Jean-Louis Swiners.
Photographers for Réalités
Galerie Agathe Gaillard
Humanist Photography (1945-1968). Izis, Boubat, Brassaï, Doisneau, Ronis and others
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Site Richelieu, Galerie de photographie
Jean Dieuzaide,
Body and Souls
Galerie Berthet Aittouarès
A History of Advertising. Photography in France from Man Ray to Jean-Paul Goude
Musée de la publicité. Les arts décoratifs
Antonio Caballero. Cité Novela
Galerie Polaris
László Lugo Lugosi.
Budapest 1900-2000
Institut Hongrois de Paris
Parisians at the Time of the Commune, 1871.
Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris
Touring Paris. Aerial Views by Roger Henrard
Musée Carnavalet
Alain Paviot. 30 Catalogues,
30 Years of Images
Galerie Françoise Paviot
Les repreneurs : photographies de second œil 1925-2006
À juste titre : ouvrages de références, 1855-2006
Galerie Michèle Chomette
Highlights. Collection of the National Museum of Photography in Copenhagen
Maison du Danemark
The Photographic Enigma of Man Ray
Galerie Marion Meyer
Ralph Gibson. Journey
Galerie Lucie Weill & Seligmann