The Photographer Sabine Weiss Chooses the Musée De L'elysée To

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The photographer Sabine Weiss chooses the Musée de l’Elysée to preserve her work and archives Announcement of June 12, 2017

Elysée Lausanne Press release Press release 12.06.2017 Elysée Lausanne 2/6

Sabine Weiss has entrusted her photographic work, the achievement of a lifetime, to the Musée de l’Elysée. The archives of the photographer, born in Switzerland in 1924, will integrate the Musée de l’Elysée’s collections as soon as it moves to PLATEFORME 10, by 2021. This donation was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Canton of Vaud through the SERAC.

Sabine Weiss chose the Musée de l’Elysée, a Swiss public institution with solid expertise in the management of photographic heritage, to preserve and showcase her work and to make it available to a broad audience. "The donation of an archive of the content and scope of that of Sabine Weiss is a significant step in the strategy of the museum, which is based in particular on its expertise in the valorization of complete collections of Swiss and international photographers. It resonates with travel photography, which is very present in the collections, and other important names of women photographers like Ella Maillart, Gertrud Fehr, Henriette Grindat and Monique Jacot", underlines Tatyana Franck, Director. At PLATEFORME 10, the Musée de l’Elysée will benefit from extensive conservation and storage spaces, as well as modular exhibition spaces designed to regularly host projects to showcase its collections.

A life devoted to photography Sabine Weiss is one of the great names in European photography. Born Sabine Weber in 1924 in Saint-Gingolph, the Swiss-born photographer did her apprenticeship with Paul Boissonnas in Geneva, before moving to Paris in 1946 where she was the assistant of Willy Maywald for four years. She settled in the French capital with her husband, the American painter Hugh Weiss, where she worked for many years with the Rapho Agency. Sabine Weiss is one of the last representatives of the “humanist” school of photography that emerged in France just after the Second World War and that included eminent photographers such as Édouard Boubat, Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis and Brassaï. While like the others, she mainly took black and white photos of everyday life and street scenes, concentrating on ordinary people and child- ren - often in snapshot mode -, she also explored a variety of other options, notably color fashion photography, advertising, photographic essays for the American press and portraits of well-known people. Sabine Weiss became known in the United States and in Europe in the 1950s through the publication of her work in popular magazines as well as through her participation in major exhibitions (Post-War European Photography at the MoMA in 1953, a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954, The Family of Man in 1955, etc.). Although she was both enterprising and curious, she had little interest in taking center stage and participating in theoreti- cal debates.

Cover: Sabine Weiss in 1954 Above: Paris, 1953 © Sabine Weiss, Collection Musée de l’Elysée Chez Dior, 1958 © Sabine Weiss Press release 12.06.2017 Elysée Lausanne 3/6

She became widely recognized by the establishment at the end of the 1970s after a decade or so in the shadow as a result of the events of May 1968 and the criticism of humanist photography, considered to be reactionary and outdated at the time. Her portraits, street scenes and travel photographs are now exhibited worldwide, and the most iconic ones can be found in major collections in France (MEP, Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée Niépce), in the United States (MET, MoMA, SFMoMA, Art Institute of Chicago), in Japan (National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto) and in Mexico (Fine Arts Museum of Santa Fe).

Sabine Weiss’ archives in figures In order to accommodate this archive with its immense heritage value, work has already begun on the selection, inventory, documentation, digitization and preservation of the collection, together with Sabine Weiss herself, providing an ideal context. The treatment of a photographic archive is a long-term task that makes it possible, after several years, to attain an in-depth understanding of a work, to take the measures necessary to preserve it for posterity and to develop relevant and varied enhancement projects. The Musée de l’Elysée is drawing upon its experience and its expertise in terms of the management of photographic collections and has already begun to treat the Sabine Weiss archives in the photographer’s own studio, meticu- lously preparing and documenting it so that it will arrive under the best conditions possible at PLATEFORME 10.

The Sabine Weiss photographic archive includes: • All of the negatives: approximately 200,000 • All of the contact sheets: 7,000 • The majority of the vintage photographs: 2,700 • The majority of late prints (modern): 2,000 • Working prints: 3,500 • Approximately 2,000 slides • Fifteen complete exhibitions • Documentation: personal photographs, press archives, reviews, receipts, correspondence, films, recordings, etc. At the same time as this donation, Sabine Weiss intends to bequeath significant collections from her work to the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the MoMA in New York.

The collections of the Musée de l’Elysée The Musée de l’Elysée had already taken an interest in Sabine Weiss’ work in 1987 via an exhibition and the acquisition of 60 black and white prints. In 2015, the museum paid tribute to her during the Nuit des images. Even though the museum acquired photo by some of the great names in photography for its collections from the very beginning, humanist photography has been poorly repre- sented until now. The Musée de l’Elysée houses more than 20 photographic archives, providing a broad view of the vast complexi- ty of the photographic medium and its successive evolutions. The work done on collections like those of René Burri, Nicolas Bouvier, Ella Maillart, Lehnert & Landrock, Marcel Imsand, Jean Mohr and Charles Chaplin make it possible to understand the genesis and specificities of its archive.

Petite fille, petit arbre, 1981 © Sabine Weiss, Collection Musée de l’Elysée New York, 1955 © Sabine Weiss Press release 12.06.2017 Elysée Lausanne 4/6

The Musée de l’Elysée is committed to hosting, both selectively and within the limits of its means, collections of regional and international scope in order to highlight little-known artists and to promote those whose reputations are already established. The donation project of the Sabine Weiss Photographic Archive, in the making for two years, marks the transition towards the site of PLATEFORME 10 and gives impetus to the momentum generated by the future museum.

Selected Bibliography - Sabine Weiss, foreword by Marta Gili, text by Virginie Chardin, exhibition catalogue, Jeu de Paume - Château de Tours, June 18 to October 30, 2016, Paris, La Martinière ; Jeu de Paume, 2016 - L’œil intime, Paris, Sabine Weiss, 2014 - See and Feel, text by Marcel Vleugels, Heerlen, ABP Public Affairs, 2007 - Sabine Weiss, text by Jean Vautrin, Paris, La Martinière, 2003 - Sabine Weiss. Intimes convictions, foreword by Frédéric Mitterand, text by Sabine Weiss, Paris, Contrejour, 1989 - En passant, text by Léone de la Grandville, Paris, Contrejour, 1978

Links Website of Sabine Weiss : https://sabineweissphotographe.com/

Excerpts from the film by Jean-Baptiste Roumens, made for the Nuit des images in 2015: www.elysee.ch/direct/presse

Press contact Julie Maillard for Tatyana Franck, Director and Caroline Recher, Curator, Collections department +41 (0)21 316 99 27 [email protected]

Press images Available on www.elysee.ch/direct/presse

Egypte, 1983 © Sabine Weiss Alberto Giacometti, 1954 © Sabine Weiss, Collection Musée de l’Elysée Press release 12.06.2017 Elysée Lausanne 5/6

The reproducted images in the press release and below are available for the press. Their use is exclusively limited to the promotion of the announcement of the Sabine Weiss donation to the Musée de l’Elysée and cannot be reformatted or modified. Please use the captions as they are presented below.

Cheval ruant, porte de Vanves, 1951 © Sabine Weiss, Collection Musée de l’Elysée Sortie de métro, Paris, 1955 © Sabine Weiss, Collection Musée de l’Elysée

The Musée de l’Elysée is an institution of the Canton of Vaud Press release 12.06.2017 Elysée Lausanne 6/6

André Breton dans son atelier, Paris, 1955 © Sabine Weiss Métro, Paris (Holiday on Ice), 1979 © Sabine Weiss, Collection Musée de l’Elysée

The Musée de l’Elysée is an institution of the Canton of Vaud