Historic pictures on show in France

Viewpoint

Wednesday July 16th 2008

A tiny French village is home to an exhibition of astonishing images dating back to the 19th-century emergence of photography, reports Michel Guerrin in Le Monde

Wednesday July 16th 2008

After the arrest of Bonnot gang members, 1912. Photograph: Service Photographique de la Police Judiciaire

It could well be this summer’s best photograph exhibition, certainly the most astonishing. The pictures on show are worthy of a museum and in many cases extremely rare or never shown before. Most relate to the emergence of photography during the 19th century. Another surprise is finding a show of such quality in Saint-Germain-le-Vasson, a village of barely 1,000 souls between Caen and Falaise in Normandy, France.

Here in the depths of the countryside is an exhibition you might expect to see at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris or the Metropolitan Museum in New York. At the opening we had no difficulty spotting the lofty curators, collectors and dealers from Paris, London, Switzerland, Germany and the US, mingling with local art lovers. They were particularly struck by a picture from 1851, never shown before and revolutionary for its time, the work of a famous team formed by Gustave Le Gray and Auguste Mestral. Here again, it was as if a Picasso from the blue period had turned up in a private home. The print, in mint condition, features two sunburned characters – much livelier than was usual in portraits of this period – lounging in the cloister at Arles-sur-Tech in the Pyrenees.

Other photographs are equally powerful. Consider the portrait of a typical Tangiers figure, c 1859, taken neither full-face nor in profile but with a three-quarters view. The sense of empathy is so strong that it quite surpasses conventional ethnic studies. Then there is a dead child, photographed in its cradle, its mouth and eyes wide open (Disdéri, 1858). Such works are followed by other big names such as Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Baldus, Le Secq, Nègre, Lartigue – including splendid portraits of Victor Hugo and Guillaume Apollinaire.

That the exhibition should be staged in the countryside is due to the owners of the venue, Brigitte and Marc Pagneux. Pagneux, one of the world’s biggest dealers in historic photographs, had a gallery on Rue Drouot in Paris from 1994 to 2004. Then the pair decided to move to Normandy.

"Our quality of life was declining in Paris and we couldn’t find an exciting venue for our projects. Then we fell in love with this house." So in 2006 they bought 4.5 hectares of land, a mansion built in 1829, six outbuildings, superb gardens, a swimming pool and tennis court.

The property belonged to the Société Métallurgique de Normandie, which operated a mine at the bottom of the garden with a workforce of 1,000 people until it closed in 1989. Le Livet – as it is known – then became a holiday centre for British children. One of the dormitories is now a 300 square metre gallery, where the Pagneux’s plan to organise exhibitions featuring all art forms, starting with the painter Philippe Albin in September.

You can only reach the village by car and there are no hotels. Visitors to the gallery must make an appointment. "You’ll be buried alive," their friends told the couple. "If what we have to offer is exciting, people will travel a long way," Pagneux said. He has been busily getting to know the locals and the company website, image-culte.com, connects them to the rest of the world.

Only half the 75 photographs on show are for sale, in keeping with the Pagneuxs’ twin activity of combining a personal collection with the business side of Livet Ltd. Pagneux called the show Trois ou quatre choses que je sais d’elle, la photographie (three or four things I know about photography). "It’s a reference to my irritation at a current trend that wants to make photography a purely documentary exercise, with everything worth the same and masterpieces belittled as mere inventions of money-grubbing traders," he says.

The exhibition, spread over six rooms, is a demonstration of the creative act. It is also a sample of the Pagneux collection, which must be one of the world’s finest, boasting some 4,000 prints gathered over 30 years. Determined to do things differently, Pagneux is now preparing another show, not in a big museum but in "an emerging country".

• Trois ou quatre choses que je sais d’elle, la photographie is at Galerie Livet, 14190 Saint-Germain-le-Vasson, France, until August 3, 2008.

Print this article

Submit article to the following: | del.icio.us | Newsvine