After his exhibition “Christmas in Berlin, The Wall, 1961” organized in 2009 for the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gallery Seine 51 gives Leon Herschtritt carte blanche.

Until March 12th, 2011, a large selection of his production’s anthology will be shown. Leon Herschtritt’s work can be situated in both a time of transition closely linked to the past – and supressed, that was once known as “the Post-War French humanist photography,” as well as a time of emergence of the new visions from across the Atlantic that, thanks to the new technological evolutions, would subsequently question these fundamentals of the image. It is therefore not by chance that this work, recognized early on, has brought to light Emmanuel Sougez’ premonition in Camera Magazine in 1961 : “It is no longer through its quality but by its subject and significance that an image now holds one’s attention”. Hopping from one subject to the next, but consistently focusing on man as subject, Leon Herschtritt gives us more than a glimpse of history, he gives us a unique slice of stories. Well beyond the “picture essay” style (Berlin Wall, youth in Algeria or the African village), or behind the great portraits (de Gaulle, Sartre, Catherine Deneuve…) we discover the mark of a generation, not a school. And overall, the unique style of a photographer. The advances in technologies and materials for shoot locations and printing materials –to remain brief- became synonyms of freedom as they blew the old chains into pieces. Liberated, the photographer is now free to concentrate on his own subject, in capturing the smallest gestures to seizing the finest emotions and expressions using only the available light.

He can even choose the lighting from a bistrot, or the grain of black and white to create a mood. To all of this, Leon Herschtritt adds to every story he embarks upon that “tender regard,” that makes his photographs stand out in middle of thousands of others.

Bernard Perrine
Institut de France Correspondent

Carte blanche for Leon Herschtritt
Until March 12, 2011

Galerie Seine 51
51 rue de Seine
75006 Paris