Marie-Laure de Decker
By rehabilitating the work of Marie-Laure de Decker, the MEP pays tribute to her unique gaze and approach, which bring history and intimacy into dialogue and whose resonance holds particular relevance today.
Marie-Laure de Decker, who often said “Photography is my life!”, lived a hundred lives, and what lives they were. All of them are reflected in the very first major retrospective devoted to her by the MEP, presented across two floors starting June 4, 2025. The exhibition features an impressive body of work, with 290 images drawn from the personal archive of this photographer, who passed away in July 2023. A grand reporter, documentarian, and portraitist, de Decker left behind a rich and multifaceted legacy. This dense and unprecedented exhibition is built from thousands of contact sheets of black-and-white and color negatives, prints, international press publications, and travel memories from around the world, sourced from her personal archives. It highlights the journey of a major contemporary photographer whose singular path has remained underrecognized until now.
It is a powerful homage to one of the pioneers among female war photographers, alongside figures such as Gerda Taro and Lee Miller, who always placed human beings at the heart of her work, documenting the social, political, and societal struggles of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Through the people she encountered across continents and conflicts, de Decker captured the upheavals of a changing world. And as an echo to the images on the walls of the MEP, this unique exhibition also subtly traces the inspiring path of an independent and free-spirited woman, unwavering in her choices and convictions.
