After working professionally with two family members, the idea was born for the curator of the Saint Roch Museum of Issoudun to exhibit the talents of this photographic family : The Sudres.
This is the first exhibition built around the father, Jean-Pierre Sudre, an avant-garde artist fascinated by organic matter, hunting it out relentlessly. He was also a reputed researcher and teacher to which he devoted most of his life. The exhibition shows large extracts of his research about “still lifes” from the ‘40’s to the “Imaginary Planet” in 1992 and including the first of the series, his 1956 “raspberry leaf”.
For the rest, it is the story about a couple whose roots are in photography. Claudine met Jean-Pierre at the photography school on the rue de Vaugirard. She became an essential element at the “Labonicole”, a black and white darkroom for a select few professional photographers. She was not only his partner, but also a specialist in former darkroom techniques, leading her to work for many major institutions. From Nadar to Bayard, including Baldus or Atget, the exhibition shows some large excerpts from this research.
It is at the Labonicole that their son Dominique and his future wife Laurence discovered and learned about photography. Dominique became part of the family pool, becoming a nature photographer, teacher, and researcher. The exhibition shows platinum prints and a beautiful helioprint, a process long abandoned in France.
Laurence found a different vocation. She specialized in portraits and is presented at the exhibition with her large format square prints of actors, directors, and artists including Joseph Beuys, Dennis Hopper, or Patrice Chereau.
Their daughter Fanny, after an initial refusal to work in photography, met with destiny when she met her future husband Jean Bernard with whom she would open a pioneering “workshop-gallery” in Aix-en-Provence.
But towards the end of the 1970’s, a first order oriented them towards photography for Museums, patrimony, or editors including Gallimard for the famous collection “The Universe of Forms”. Bernard Perrine

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition : “Les Sudre une famille de photographes” (Éditions Delpire)


Until december 30
Musée de l’hospice Saint Roch
Rue de l’Hospice Saint-Roch
36100 Issoudun

March 18th – May 11th 2011
Musée des Tapisseries
Ancien Palais de l’Archevêché
28, Place Des Martyrs de la Résistance
13100 Aix-en-Provence