The navy officer, journalist and member of the French Academy, Julien Viaud, better known as Pierre Loti (1850-1923) was a traveling writer whose talents included drawing and photography. The National Navy Museum is honoring him with an exhibition of 75 photographs to be presented through October 2, 2011 in the tower of the recently renovated Château de Brest.

In 1894, Pierre Loti acquired a detective’s miniature view camera functioning with small glass plates (6×8.5cm) to keep track of his journeys. In Turkey, India, the Holy Land, Persia, China, he was forever with his camera. He shot landscapes, places and people, allowing Pierre Loti, like any professional photographer, to choose his points of view, his crops and especially the moments he wanted to remember. His was a professional point of view. It is true that the young Julien Viaud had a very early introduction to photography. As a child, he discovered his brother Gustave’s callotypes from Tahiti, then his sister’s stereoscopic views in Switzerland and his great-aunt Berthe, a photography pioneer who introduced him to photography very early, even if his work only began in 1890. But Pierre Loti didn’t stop there, he bought and collected the photographs that most pleased him. Photography became the backdrop for his literary works, completing a story, providing atmosphere and color despite the fact that the majority of the pictures, save for the autochromes, were in black and white. All of these dimensions can be found in his texts including Le Désert, Jérusalem, L’Inde (sans les Anglais), Les derniers jours de Pékin…

The exhibition’s 75 prints demonstrate how with time, these pictures have acquired, in addition to their artistic value, a historical and ethnographical dimension. They reveal the places and ways of life that have since disappeared.

The collection presented at the Marine Museum is comprised of 54 contemporary prints made from glass negatives. They include the reportages made in the Holy Land (1894), in India (1899-1900), in Persia (1900), in China (1901), in the Along Bay (1901-1902), and in Egypt (1907).

The remaining 19 modern reprints made from Verascopes (4,5x 10,5cm) feature his travels to Turkey between 1903 and 1905.

The Marine Museum is also showing two portraits of the artist from its permanent collection. Three of his cameras will be displayed: the detective view camera, the Richard Verascope and his Richard Stereoscope from 1905.

Pierre Loti’s photo collection, gathered over his years of travels, include several thousand documents, half of which are owned by the writer’s descendants, the other half at the Pierre Loti Museum. They include 350 6 × 8.5cm gelatin-bromure negatives, more recent pictures taken in Turkey with the Richard Verascope, visible with the viewing machine in the living room of the Loti-Viaud family. The collection also includes approximately 100 prints acquired by Pierre Loti from fellow professional photographers.

Bernard Perrine

Pierre Loti Photographe
Until October 2, 2011

Musée national de la Marine
Château de Brest
Boulevard de la Marine
29200 Brest
+33 (0)2 98 22 12 39
brest@musee-marine.fr
Open daily from 10am to 6:30pm