The history of photography through the collections of the Nicéphore Niépce museum

Pour in Œhe Photo, photo books are as important as‘exhibition or portfolio. They work‘history and‘medium news. Our correspondent Zoé Isle de Beauchaine looks at the latest with tireless curiosity and knowledgeandres publications.

On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Nicéphore Niépce museum in Chalon-sur-Saône, Sylvain Besson, its director since 2008, publishes a story for Textuel original photos, celebration‘the immense variety of this medium “inexhaustible”, continuationed through museum collections.

With “four million photos, more than 8000 cameras, at least twice as many‘accessories, thirty thousand magazines and technical books or illustrated with photographs » , the holdings of the Nicéphore Niépce museum have a lot to tell. This incredible collection stands out above all for its heterogeneity, the result of the work to promote the media as a whole, which was initiated by Paul Jay, the first director of the museum, and continued by his successor François Cheval.

Over the years, the collections have been enriched with both authored and anonymous photographs, memories of summer vacations and family albums, legal or scientific photographs, postcards, advertising items or everyday life, relief photographs and photomicrographs. The Niépce Museum also greatly contributed to the opening of this discipline to photography magazines and books by being one of the first to include them in its collections, while many favor photography.‘unitesthat d‘original print.

It is precisely this concept of‘unitesIt is, loaned at the‘the story of‘art, to which the museum has always refused to limit itself. In the eyes of Sylvain Besson, the opposite “would mean excluding the concept of series for the author-photographer,‘photo album for amateur practice, illustrated magazine for‘news agency, bornto slip l‘the very essence of the intended photographic by Nicképhore Niépce: that of the multiple. »

Echoing Niépce, the work published by Textuel proposes to explore the history of photography through the multiple paths it took, from its creation to the digital, offering its share in (Reddiscovered. In an encyclopedic form, it follows its technical evolution, as well as the evolution of its distribution media, its omnipresence in endless fields – fashion, advertising, press, documentary, propaganda, justice, science, erotica, cinematographyhuh as well as the entire intimate sphere — and finally its understanding as art in itself.

In this “second history” of photography, as unique as it is fascinating,‘hangs out anonymously with the big names of photography,‘the artist and‘craftsman becomes one, technique and aesthetics go hand in hand,‘intimate becomes professional and vice versa.

Sylvain Besson’s work embodies fifty years of acquisition whose heterogeneity is rich and pays tribute to the Niépce museum that has never stopped promoting‘universalityé of this multifaceted medium, which responds to‘François Arago’s ambition for photography: “all that‘catch him. »