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Paris upon Seine
Thanks to "Paris Plages" (during summer) and "Paris Respire" (every Sunday and public holiday throughout the year), Paris takes a break from traffic, turning the banks of the river Seine into a car-free zone.
In order to reduce pollution and improve quality of life, the City of Paris aims at permanently pedestrianizing the banks in the inner city, to the chagrin of motorists.
Enjoy our gallery of images of this popular place of business and leisure, from the dog shearers and mattress makers of late 19th century to the urban fisherman of the 1920s and sun worshippers of the sixties. -
Portraits of artists by Boris Lipnitzki
A fashionable portraitist from the roaring twenties through the end of the 1950s, Boris Lipnitzki was born in Russia in 1897 and moved to Paris in 1921.
With the support of his friend, fashion designer Paul Poiret, he opened a photographic studio as popular with the Russian exiles as with the fashion set, the photographer a welcome guest in artists' studios as well as in Parisian salons. He spent WWII in New York with Marc Chagall and returned to Paris after the war.
His photographic production is a true "Who's Who" of the Parisian creative world of the time, from writers to musicians, from painters to fashion designers.
A large section of the Boris Lipnitzki's portraits from the Roger-Viollet collections is being digitized by Parisienne de Photographie with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. -
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was born in 1906 in a poor family from Missouri and started her career as an itinerant vaudeville artist. She moved to Paris in 1925 and her first appearance in 'La Revue Nègre' at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, wearing only a string of artificial bananas, was an instant hit.ﾠ She later became the star dancer of the Folies Bergères cabaret. In 1931, her singing career was launched with a love song to Paris 'J'ai deux amours'. A French citizen since 1937, she got involved in the Resistance and fought against racism. She kept performing until her death in 1975, and is one of the most photographed vaudeville artists of her time.
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The Folies Bergère
The "Folies Trévise" cabaret opened in 1869 at 32 rue Richer in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, in a district near teh Grands Boulevards housing many theatres, cabarets and cafes. It was renamed "Folies Bergère" three years later. Built as a small opera house by architect Plumeret, the theatre was the birthplace of the Parisian variety show in the late 19th Century. This new type of entertainment featured songs and dances led by a female master of ceremony and star dancer. This role was assigned over the years to various women artists embodying the spirit of Paris: la Belle Otéro and Cléo de Mérode during the Belle Epoque, Mistinguett before WWI and Josephine Baker during the 1930s.
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Georges Kelaïditès' swinging 60s
Born in 1932 in Paris, Georges Kelaïditès started working as a photographer's assistant in the early 1950s. He bought his first SLR camera in 1955 and the very same year, sold his first photograph to French news magazine 'Paris-Match'. He started spending his summers in Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera, taking candid images of celebrities without ever getting close to them, his motto being: "In order to photograph them, you have to stay away from their circle". In Paris, he photographed some of the icons of the 1960s and 1970s in a more formal way, at home and by appointment: Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin, Michel Polnareff, François-Marie Banier or Line Renaud, for magazines 'Elle', 'Stern', 'Oggi' or Parisian newspaper L'Aurore'. He quit his career as a photographer in 1976.
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Colette
Colette, born Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette in 1873, received a secular, feminist and literary education. Married to the publisher Henry Gauthiers-Villars, nicknamed Willy, she became his ghostwriter for the 'Claudine' series. In 1905, she freed herself: published 'Dialogues de Bêtes' (Animal dialogue) under the name of Colette Willy, performed mime shows at the Théâtre Marigny, the Moulin Rouge and the Bataclan. She also had female lovers and published her own works. In 1912, she married Henri de Jouvenel, chief editor of the newspaper 'Le Matin'. The couple had a daughter. As literary editor of 'Le Matin', she provided advice to Simenon before publishing him. Linked to Belgium by her mother, she was elected member of the Belgian Royal Academy and became friends with Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. From 1919 to 1925, she wrote 'L'Enfant et les Sortilèges' with Mr Ravel and met Maurice Goudeket, her last husband and greatest friend until her death in 1954. In 1945, she was admitted at the French Goncourt academy and promoted to the rank of Grand Officer of the French Légion d'Honneur in 1953.
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To winter sports
Even Parisians sometimes leave the capital, and this new section of Paris en Images invites you to follow suit.
In the 19th century, recreational travel was first the privilege of the nobility, then of the bourgeoisie, following the example of the British and their Grand Tour.
For leisure, business, or health, to winter sports or sunny shores, travel occasions diversified following the development of transports.
In France in 1936, the first paid vacations triggered the democratization of domestic and international travel.
Here is the first of these illustrated getaways. -
At school
During the 19th century, improving literacy amongst the general population becomes a major public goal in most Western Countries. In France, attendance to school is mandatory and education is free since Education Minister Jules Ferry's laws of 1881 and 1882. Every year in September, all children get ready for the new school year and, come the big day, joyfully or in tears, meet their classmates and teachers. Here is our selection of snapshots of schools and pupils from our collections, from playground to refectory and classroom, from kindergarten to vocational schools.
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Art studios
Ever since the invention of photography in the 19th century, artists' studios have fascinated photographers. Documenting interiors and making portraits of popular artists, focusing on the creative act itself or seeing the studio as a metaphor for the birth of images & photography has always penetrated and explored these spaces where the work of art is produced. On the occasion of the exhibition 'In the Studio' at the Petit Palais, here is a selection of studios and of their artists and models.
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Edith Piaf
Edith Gassion was born in Paris on December 19th, 1915 and lived in Belleville, then in Normandy where her grandmother owned a brothel. She followed her father at the age of 7 in his poor artist's life and left when she was 15 to sing Frehel in the street. Five years later, thanks to Louis Leplée who owned a cabaret, she became famous under her new name "La Môme Piaf" (the kid sparrow). After Leplée’s tragic death, another mentor, the composer Raymond Asso introduced her to Paris most prestigious music-halls: l'Alhambra, Bobino, l'ABC made her a major performing artist and radio star. In 1940, she performed in a theatre play, "Le Bel Indifférent", specially written for her by Jean Cocteau. Her life was punctuated with mostly unlucky love affairs, as with the boxing champion Marcel Cerdan. She promoted great French artists such as Yves Montand, Charles Aznavour or Georges Moustaki. Suffering of polyarthritis, she became addicted to morphine and alcohol. She saved the Olympia concert hall from bankruptcy in 1961 with legendary concerts. Exhausted, she performed duets with Théo Sarapo and married him in 1962. She died on October 10th, 1963 at the early age of 47 and over 40,000 persons attended her funeral at the Parisian Père Lachaise cemetery. Piaf and her legendary songs such as "La Vie en Rose" remain popular in the whole world.
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The river Seine
"Under Mirabeau bridge runs the Seine And our loves Must I remember them Joy came always after pain&hellip" (Guillaume Apollinaire by William A Sigler)From Lutetia to Paname, poets, lovers and boatmen have always been attracted by the river Seine. Eugène Atget, François Kollar and many others have photographed it.Used for sailing, trade or industrial freight transport, the river Seine is the spine of Paris and, since the construction of the riverbank expressways in the 1970s, the site of a bitter dispute between cars and pedestrians. Despite the cars, it can still be the perfect area for strolling and relaxing.
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Jaurès in Paris
Born in Castres (near Toulouse) in 1859 in a middle-class family, Jean Jaurès is elected at the age of 25 a member of the French Parliament for the Republican party but becomes a socialist after the great miners' strike in Carmaux in 1892. He condemns the repressive policy of the government against the workmen, as well as the 'heinous laws' repressing the anarchist movement, and advocates freedom of conscience. Known as a great speaker, his meetings are crowded. After the Dreyfus case, whom he supported ardently, he devotes himself to journalism and founds left-wing daily 'L'Humanité' in 1904. He also participates in the creation of the SFIO party (International Workers Party's French section) with Jules Guesde. He embraces the pacifist cause and opposes the "3 years bill" seeking to extend the duration of the military service in a memorable speach in May 1913 at le Pré-Saint-Gervais near Paris. After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, he opposes in vain the spiral towards war. On July 31, 1914 Jaurès is assassinated at Café du Croissant near his newspaper's offices, while having dinner. His murderer, nationalist Raoul Villain will be discharged in March 1919 in the patriotic aftermath of the 1918's victory. But after the electoral victory of the left wing coalition, Jean Jaurès' remains are transferred to the Panthéon on November 23, 1924. He is still considered one of the greatest figure of the French left.
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Paris' rooftops
The view on Paris' rooftops is magnificent. Made of zinc or slate, they still inspire poets, painters and taggers, filmmakers and photographers. Their designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site was recently contemplated.Here is a tribute to the roofs of Paris and to their craftsmen and workers.
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Jeanne Lanvin
Born in 1867 in a poor family, Jeanne Lanvin started to work at the age of 13 as an apprentice dressmaker and hat trimmer in a shop located rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré where she opened her own small fashion store five years later. In 1889, she opened her first boutique rue Boissy where she sold her own millinery creations.After giving birth to Marguerite in 1897, Jeanne started designing clothes for her baby, then collections and dresses. In 1909, she launched a clothing collection for women. As a part of the Parisian elite, the Lanvin fashion house joined the 'Syndicat de la Couture' (French Union of Fashion).Curious and inspired by arts, decorative arts and cultures from around the world, her creations were sophisticated and modern. She created her colors in her own dyeing workshops: Lanvin blue, Polignac pink, Velasquez green. She used to take as much care over the choice of fabrics and the finish. Later, she expended her activities into interior design, sportswear, men's clothing and perfume. As time went by, she set a textile empire counting numerous boutiques.Between the 1920’s and the 1930's, Jeanne Lanvin became a part of history: queens, princesses as well as famous actresses counted among her customers and 'Arpège', created in 1927, quickly became a mythical fragrance. Jeanne Lanvin died peacefully in 1946.
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Au Masculin!
Parisienne de Photographie takes you through to an imaginary men's wardrobe through the exhibition Au Masculin! at the Paris Cité de la Mode et du Design (winter 2013-2014).
From passageways to rooftop, the exhibition demonstrated in 50 photographs what present fashion owes to yesterday’s styles. From Parisian dandies to fishermen from Brittany, from sewer workers to trendy artists, discover how forgotten looks are invited back into our dressing rooms. -
The Halles covered market
In order to feed the growing population of Paris, Louis VI ordered the construction of a covered market on a former swamp in 1137. The existing markets of la Cité and place de Grève were regrouped there as well as, 50 years later, the Saint-Lazare fair. The number of merchants increased and new buildings were added over the years. In 1780, the closure of the nearby cemetery of the Innocents doubled the market's ground area but sanitary conditions remained poor and trafic disruptions increased. In the 1840s, the commission created by Rambuteau, the prefect of Paris, decided to preserve and restructure the “belly of Paris”. The architectural competition held in 1848 was won by Baltard. Ten specialised pavilions (for meat, eggs, flowers, etc.) were built between 1852 and 1870. The covered market and its 'strongmen' fed the capital during a century, until its transfer to Rungis and La Villette in 1969. The Baltard pavilions were demolished in 1970, to be replaced in 1977 by a local train station and a shopping centre inaugurated in 1979. A renovation was initiated in 2010, the "Canopée" inaugurated in April 2016.Visit one of the oldest districts of Paris.
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Sarah Bernhardt
Born in 1844 from an unknown father and a courtesan, Sarah Bernhardt was raised in Brittany and sent to a Catholic convent school at the age of 10. In 1859, she was admitted to the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique (French National Academy of Dramatic Arts). She joined the Comédie-Française in 1862 but was expelled only 4 years later for slapping a sociétaire (regular member). Revealed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon, she converted it into a military hospital during the Paris Commune.In 1872, as she triumphed in the role of the Queen in 'Ruy Blas', Victor Hugo nicknamed her 'the golden voice'. Her success convinced the Comédie-Française to call her back but she violently resigned in 1880. She travelled the world with her own theatre company. Praised by Jean Cocteau, Anton Chekhov, the press and the public, this uncommon actress performed roles of both men and women.She strongly supported émile Zola during the Dreyfus affair, but also Louise Michel and the abolition of death penalty. An inspiration for fashion and Art Nouveau style, she commissioned Alfons Mucha to design her advertising posters. She also dramatized her daily life by posing in her room for Nadar or, when diagnosed with tuberculosis, in a coffin displayed in her house. 1900 marked the debut of the cinema career that she maintained despite her amputated leg and illness. She died on March 26, 1923 during the shooting of a film by Sacha Guitry. She was honored through a national funeral and buried at the Père-Lachaise cemetery.
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Pierre and Marie Curie
Pierre Curie, born in Paris in 1859, together with his brother Jacques discovered piezoelectricity in 1880. In 1895, after a doctoral thesis on magnetism, he became a professor of physics at the Paris School of Physics and Chemistry. The same year, he married Maria Sklodowska, a Polish scientist studying in France. Two years later, their daughter Irène was born and Marie started studying the phenomenon discovered by Becquerel, which she named « radioactivity ». Pierre started to work with her in 1898 and they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906 for their discovery of radium and polonium. Pierre accidentally died shortly thereafter and Marie replaced him at La Sorbonne, which was unprecedented. Recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1911, she was the only woman at the Solvay Conference, where she met Albert Einstein. During World War One, she worked with Irène on the use of radiography on the front. A model for generations of women and a respected international figure, she died from cancer in 1934.
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Charles Marville
Born in Paris in 1813, Charles Marville started his career as a painter-engraver before turning to photography around 1850. In 1851, he started working with Blanquart-Evrard who created in Lille one of the first publishing houses specialized in photography. Like the photographers of the "Mission héliographique", Marville travelled all over France to document religious architecture, and produced an album depicting the Rhine river valley. Specialized in artwork reproductions, he became the official photographer of the Louvre Museum. Meanwhile, he covered the restoration works managed by Viollet-le-Duc and Abadie. In 1858, the City of Paris hired Marville to photograph the Bois de Boulogne, recently opened to the public. Major construction works initiated by Haussmann were taking place in Paris, completely remodelling the French capital city. In order to preserve a testimony of the past appearance of the city, the Prefect created the Historical Works Department, which hired Marville to document the urban heritage marked for destruction. Between 1865 and 1869, a series of 425 photographs of Parisian streets was produced. The photographer also documented some of Haussmann's innovations such as the new urban furniture, or perspectives of the newly created avenues. Those photographs were exhibited in the pavilion of the City of Paris during the 1878 World Fair. Marville died in Paris in 1879.
His work is well represented in the City of Paris' museums and libraries' collections, such as Musée Carnavalet, Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris and Bibliothèque de l’Hôtel de Ville. -
La Parisienne revealed
"On the occasion of the European Heritage Days, Parisienne de Photographie is treating you to a behind-the-scene tour. Parisienne de Photographie is in charge of conserving the Roger-Viollet photographic collections bequeathed to the City of Paris in 1984: 6 millions of images from the invention of photography to the end of the 20th Century. Conservation means sorting out, making inventories, cleaning and storing the negatives or photographic prints in adequate containers. It also means digitization in order to protect this treasure for the use of the generations to come. Apart from the Roger-Viollet collections, the Parisienne de Photographie reproduces the collections from Parisian museums and patrimonial libraries, almost 20 institutions in all, from the Paris Catacombs to the Historical Library, from the Carnavalet museum to the Palais Galliera fashion museum. Since the creation of the company in 2005, over 400,000 reproductions have become available to the public thanks to the scanning or photographing of works, documents and art pieces, as well as the indexation of these images. Parisienne de Photographie's other mission is to promote the collections through loans of original pieces, exhibitions of modern prints, screenings and online presentations on Paris.fr, Europeana or Paris en Images. Not to mention the work of Roger-Viollet agency, Parisienne's subsidiary in charge of the distribution to media and book publishing professionals, but that is another story (behind the pictures)!"
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The media district in Paris
From the mid-19th century, Parisian media outlets were concentrated in an area located near the Grands Boulevards, between Réaumur and Opéra, in the 2nd and 9th arrondissements. The move was initiated by major newspapers (Le Petit Journal in 1863, Le Petit Parisien in 1879, Le Figaro in 1874 and Le Matin in 1884) soon followed by printers, press agencies and trade associations. On the eve of WWI, the French press had one of the largest readership in the world: these were the greatest days of the so called “République du Croissant”, named after the rue du Croissant, whose intersection with rue Montmartre was the epicentre of the district. Jean Jaurès, the founder and manager of socialist newspaper L’Humanité was assassinated at his table in café du Croissant on July 31, 1914. After WW2, other newspapers moved to the boulevards: France Soir in 1945, Le Monde succeeding to Le Temps on Boulevard des Italiens; today, most of them have left the district.
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May 68 by the reporters of the newspaper “France-Soir”
Nanterre, the Sorbonne, Cohn-Bendit, De Gaulle… A team of 20 photographers covered the May-June 1968 events. From the first cobblestone’s throw to the Grenelle agreements, from the communist march to the Gaullist demonstrations, their images were daily published in “France-Soir”.
Unseen for most of them, these photos bear witness day by day to the demonstrations and violent confrontations, to the massive strikes and the negotiations with the political power.
Parisienne de Photographie - Roger-Viollet digitized and edited around 25,000 images from the “France-Soir” photo archives, held by the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris (Historic Library of the City of Paris).
Click on this image to discover a large selection in chronological order of the photos available on Paris en Images. -
The Great Flood of 1910
In 1910, the Great Flood of the river Seine wreaked unprecedented damage: Paris became a victim of its modernity. The river's levels had been monitored since the Second Empire, based on the level reached during the 1876 floods (6.5m). Surveillance was introduced by Eugène Belgrand, who created the Parisian sewers and drinking water systems. However, after invading an underground gallery, the water entered a tunnel of the Parisian subway, still under construction, before covering the tracks of the railways leading to the Orsay and Invalides train stations. Paris looked like Venice, attracting crowds of onlookers and photographers. Food supply, electricity and transports were suspended. Some streets collapsed, pools appeared and polluted water invaded hundreds of streets. The flood affected 12 of the capital's arrondissements as well as the suburbs. Public services and private relief groups united to pump the water out, evacuate inhabitants, build dikes and footbridges. Fishermen were mobilized, bringing 300 small boats. On January 28, the river Seine reached a heigth of 8,50m, flooding a quarter of the Parisian buildings. The water level took 35 days to drop back to normal.
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Laure Albin-Guillot
Born in 1879 and married to a scientist, Laure Albin Guillot invented micrography in the 1920s, referring to her photographs made with a microscope. In 1922, she won a contest organized by the Revue française de photographie and started to exhibit her work in 1925 at the Exhibition of Industrial and Modern Arts. Her works were published in magazines Arts et métiers graphiques and Vu and her public and institutional recognition was established. During the 1930s, she produced portraits and nudes, as well as advertisement and fashion photography. She collaborated with her many friends in the literary and artistic community to produce sophisticated illustrated portfolios such as Narcissus by Paul Valéry, in 1936, or Préludes by Debussy, in 1948. As the director of the photographic archives of the French Ministry of Fine Arts, she was a strong advocate of photography as an artform. She died in 1962, leaving a production of about 50,000 photographs.
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Small crafts
From the 19th century, the Parisian population started to grow and poverty affected one third of its people. Children from families living in extreme poverty used to work like their parents, often performing their humble crafts on the streets : costermongers, tinsmiths, grinders, chair-bottomers, dog shearers... Their figures were part of the landscape of old-time Paris.
Eugène Atget, Albert Harlingue and Jacques Boyer immortalized these now defunct small crafts. -
Henri Roger
Born in 1869, Henri Roger took his first photograph at the age of 11. Turning 20, he started his professional life as an engineer while becoming an amateur pioneer of special-effects photography. To celebrate his engagement to his future wife, Jeanne Viollet, he climbed on top of the university lightning conductor to be photographed in this precarious position. As of 1901, his children became his principal models, capturing a moment of their bourgeois daily life, each time with a comical, intriguing or extravagant twist. He introduced his elder daughter Hélène (1901-1985) to photography. This art became a long lasting passion which led her to create the Roger-Viollet photo agency. World War One provoked a harsh change in Henri Viollet's works. After both his wife and son died, he put away photographic pranks, restricting himself to more classic shots of Paris, family life and travels, until his death in 1946.
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The construction of the Paris Métro
Starting in November 1898, the construction of the first line of the Parisian underground metropolitan train line, a.k.a "le Métro" was completed in 20 months, a record. The works were supervised by civil engineer Fulgence Bienvenüe and funded by the city of Paris. The West-East line linking the Chateau de Vincennes to porte Dauphine was divided into 11 sections, allotted to several contractors. The construction was meant to use moles under the pavements; however, in order to limit the duration of the works, open trenches appeared, causing significant nuisance and traffic disruptions to the residents. The Metro line 1, today one of 14, was inaugurated on July 19, 1900, just in time for the summer Olympic games held in the bois de Vincennes.
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The Liberation of Paris
The battle for Paris started on August 19, 1944 after four years of occupation by the German army. The fights lasted a week. The 2nd Armoured Division, under the command of the General Leclerc, entered Paris by the Porte d'Orléans on August 24. The French capital was officially liberated the following day and, despite the order given by Hitler, the bridges and monuments were saved from destruction. The General de Gaulle delivered his famous speech from the steps of the Paris City Hall: "Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated!" The French and American flags flourished at the windows while allied and French liberation troops were welcomed as heroes by the Parisians.
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Maurice-Louis Branger
Maurice-Louis Branger was born in Fontainebleau in 1874 and started his career as a photographer in 1895. He created the Photopress photo report agency circa 1905, located at 5 rue Cambon in Paris. A versatile and very active photographer, he covered the main events of Paris life, such as the Great Flood of 1910, many trials and criminal cases, but also political and cultural life as well as sporting events. As a senior reporter, he was one of the few photographers to go to the Balkans in 1913 during the First Balkan War. Upon his return to France, he photographed World War I and its consequences on the country for four years. After the war, he became well known for his Parisian reportages documenting the daily life of the roaring twenties in a rapidly changing city. He died in 1950 in Mantes-la-Jolie.
The digitization of the Maurice Louis Branger archive is co-funded by the European Union as part of the Europeana Photography project (http://www.europeana-photography). -
Paris' cobblestones
Cobbled streets are as ancient as the civilized world but the type of pavement used in the courtyards of the Palace of Versailles or of the Marais district's townhouses appeared in the 17th century. The 18x18 or 20x20 square, 23 cm thick cobblestones, made of sandstone or wood were designed by now extinct stone masons and other specialized craftsmen.Parisian cobblestones are part the French collective memory, the nightmare of high heels and bicycle races, the raw material of barricades, 1968 student demonstrations' projectile weapon of choice, or a nostalgic memento of once picturesque streets now covered with asphalt.
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The Paris commune
After the defeat of 1871 against the German troops, Paris rises up on March 18 against Thiers ; government which left the capital for Versailles. The Comité central of the Parisian National guard organizes elections to constitute a Commune government which settles in the Hôtel de Ville, decorated with red flags.This young and popular Parisian assembly includes great men such as the writer Jules Vallès or the painter Gustave Courbet. Many women, such as Louise Michel, an emblematic figure of the Commune, get involved in the fight, as well as many foreign volunteers.But the lack of organization and the disagreements between the leaders precipitate the end of this utopia. The Commune ends with a massive repression led by the Versailles troops during the "bloody week" of May 21 to May 28: massive executions, street fights near the barricades, the Communards set fire to several monuments. Thousands of prisoners are taken to Versailles, waiting to be judged in dreadful conditions of detention. The last deported and exiled Communards will wait until 1880 for their amnesty.
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Paris by Paris
Born in 1903, Gaston Paris joined the weekly magazine 'Vu', founded in 1928 by Lucien Vogel in the early 1930s. He was the only salaried photographer for the magazine, working alongside Laure Albin Guillot, Germaine Krull, André Kertész, Martin Munkacsi, Man Ray and Robert Capa.
He carried out a great many photo reports: the 1937 Exhibition, sports, music, theater, the worksite of the new Trocadéro, etc. In addition to this typical production by a photographer reporter of that time, he carried out a number of strange and personal photo reports inspired by surrealism. As he excelled in staging strange scenes, he became one of the main contributors to 'Detective' magazine from the end of the thirties through the fifties. His photos, vacillating between horror and melodrama, reconstituted dramatic events of gangsters and vamps. He died in Paris in 1964.
The photographer's archives has been acquired by Roger-Viollet shortly after his demise.
Digitization of the Gaston Paris collection has been supported by the European Union as part of the EuropeanaPhotography project (http://www.europeana-photography.eu/) -
The 1900 World Exhibition
The 1900 World Exhibition was the fifth one in Paris since 1855. Inaugurated on April 15, it attracted almost 50 million visitors in 7 months. Exhibitions had grown in scale since London in 1851: the 1900 edition covered 112 hectares, from Champs-de-Mars to Esplanade des Invalides, from Cours la Reine to Place de la Concorde including the banks of the river Seine. Among the attractions were a huge terrestrial globe and a big Ferris wheel flanking the Eiffel Tower built for the 1889 exhibition, the moving sidewalk of the "Street of the Future", luminous fountains and cinematographic displays. A symbol of the Belle Epoque, the entire exhibition was a testimony of the young 20th Century's optimism. The Petit and Grand Palais were built for the occasion, as well as the new Orsay and Gare de Lyon train stations, and the first metro line (inaugurated in July 1900) in order to accommodate the expected crowds of visitors.
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Léon Claude Vénézia's Paris
Both humanist and poetic, Léon Claude Vénézia's photographs take us to the East of Paris and its suburbs. Born in 1941 in Paris, he immortalized the big transformations in architecture and society occurred from the late 1960's to the 1980's, from Belleville to Drancy, and from Ménilmontant and Bobigny. Outstanding colorist, he composes happy representations of a popular Paris where children, immigrants, craftsmen and street jobs mix. Vénézia died in November 2013 in Aix-en-Provence, where he taught photography.
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Paris shops and storefronts
From small street stalls to department stores, from bakeries and butcher shops to jewellers, from sidewalk cafes to famous restaurants, Parisian shopkeeper take good care of their storefronts, their first advertisement to passers-by. They are a great part of the charm of the streets in the capital, and some of them are protected under heritage preservation laws. Here are images of the most remarkable or picturesque storefronts in Paris from the late 19th century to the 1980s, including a colourful reportage by architecture photographer Felipe Ferre held in the collections of Musée Carnavalet in Paris.
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Paris 1914-1918, life during wartime by Charles Lansiaux
Charles Lansiaux (1855-1939) became a photographer at the end of the 19th century. He established his own business in 1903, describing his company purpose as "Artistic and industrial photography, city works, emergency works, interior photography with artificial light, enlargements, amateur documentary photography ". At the beginning of the war in 1914, he started documenting daily life in Paris, far from the frontline. The resulting series of over 1000 images, titled "Aspects of Paris during the war of 1914" was not initially intended for publication but to be preserved as a testimony of what had happened. The Paris Historical library purchased the images as they were taken.
A selection of 200 of these so far unpublished photos was featured at the Galerie des Bibliothèques from Januay to June 2014. Find here these photographs, assembled following the sections in the exhibition.
Image: Charles Lansiaux : "Refugees from the North of France who travelled by train to settle in their families". Paris, August 20-30, 1914. © Charles Lansiaux / BHVP / Roger-Viollet -
Gösta Wilander's colourful Paris
Born in Göteborg in Sweden at the end of the 19th century, Gösta Wilander came to Paris in 1919 to learn French, promptly fell in love with the French Capital and married a Parisian. This amateur photographer, employed by the Swedish Consulate by day, experimented with coulour photography, making Paris his principal object. A tireless walker as well as a keen observer, Gösta Wilander produced a humorous and colourful 'street photography', capturing snapshots of Parisian life from 1958 until his death in 1982. The Société Française de Photographie honored him with a medal in 1967. Held in the Musée Carnavalet collections, a selection of his photographs has recently been digitised by Parisienne de Photographie.
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Swimming in Paris
Established in the mid-17th century the first bathhouses on the river Seine were seasonal and basic: users left their clothes on a boat moored to the quay and bathed in the river, hidden behind canvas walls. In 1783, police regulated bathing installations. Larger, better equiped bathing boats were created, some of them famous, such as the Deligny public baths, first opened in 1801 and rebuilt in 1840, which operated until 1993. As river trafic increased, no new installation permits were given after 1877, and bathing boats were replaced by swimming pools starting in the 1920s, such as the Molitor pool near the Bois de Boulogne, inaugurated in 1929 by Olympic medalist Johnny Weissmuller. Despite poor water quality, swimming competitions in the Seine were still popular in the early XXth century. Although prohibited by law in 1923, bathing in the river remained a tradition until the 1960s.
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World War One in the Archives of the newspaper Excelsior
Founded in 1910, "Excelsior" was among the first French daily newspapers to publish a large number of photographs in its pages. In 1914, from the declaration of war, the newspaper recruited photographers and published around 20 to 30 photographs a day. Embedded on the front by the army press relations department or - most of the time - in the rear, these photojournalists kept an illustrated journal of the Great War. The photographs covered the main subjects: the general mobilization, the evacuation of the French and Belgian governments, the arrival of foreign troops, women and children at work, the colonial workforce in ammunition factories and destructions. It also covered trials for treason, mutual aid movements, the progress of medicine, the victory and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. All these images remained unpublished since then and presented the consequences of the conflict on the life of the French people. "Excelsior" stopped being published in 1940. Its photographic archives are now property of the newspaper "L'Equipe".Among the 20,000 glass sheets covering the 1914-1919 period and digitized by the Parisienne de Photographie, 5,000 photos has been selected and are exclusively distributed by the Roger-Viollet agency.
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The Popular Front in Paris
As a response to the violent demonstrations provoked by nationalist leagues in February 1934, all left-wing movements united to challenge the rise of the far-right parties and the risk of a dictatorship. This coalition won the 1936 elections under the leadership of Léon Blum who headed the government until 1938, whilst rising unemployment and inflation triggered strikes and major popular protests. On June 7, 1936, the Matignon agreements were signed between French employers and leading trade union CGT (General Confederation of Labour). These ground breaking agreements established the 40-hour working week, and the first mandatory paid vacations (2 weeks), as well as wage increases. Over 600,000 new holidaymakers benefited from the discounted train tickets created for the occasion, and many sporting and outdoor associations, promoting camping (and culture !) or cycling were also established at the time.Browse our Popular Front 80th anniversary galleries.
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Prostitution and "demi-monde"
Proletarian street walkers dreamed to become courtesans, or to achieve the even more aristocratic state of "demi-mondaines". Those women of easy virtue and quirky nicknames were also dancers, singers, models or actresses. Between the Second Empire and the Belle Epoque, prostitution left the confined atmosphere of the brothels, taking over cabarets, theaters and the Parisian Grands Boulevards. There, women of the world, 'demi-mondaines' and prostitutes mingled, composing a feminine universe which stimulated the artists' imaginary world. In parallel, erotic images spread with the progress of the commercial photography in 1900. Brothels' were banned and closed in 1946. A Story behind the pictures on the occasion of the exhibition "Splendour and misery - Pictures of Prostitution, 1850-1910" at the Musée d'Orsay (2016).
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