Within the frame of the series of off-site exhibitions, the Jeu de Paume is presenting in the Tours Castle, from June 18 through November 6, 2011, alongside with the Société française de photographie “La République des amateurs” (“The Republic of Amateurs”).

Since 1880 in fact, the arrival of the silver bromide gel and the simplification of the process by Kodak with the slogan “You press the button, we’ll do the rest” have driven us into the democratization of photography. As a result, the latter helped to promote the development of amateur photographic circles. These are the activities on which this exhibition focuses, as stressed in the 1889 text by Albert Londe, quoted in the prologue: “We find the important role of the amateurs in the research that they undertake with enthusiasm. If we would analyze the process of all the photographic inventions, we would immediately notice the important part that the amateurs have played; they have always been in the lead of this movement, and managed it with success”.

Based on these comments, the curators Garence Chabert, Julie Jones et Carole Troufléau-Sandrin decided to show the practices of the amateur photographers during the 1900s through a selection made from the collections of the Société française de photographie (SFP).

We find a wide anthology of the activities developed in these circles of enthusiasts: excursions, prizes, projections, publications….

The exhibition is in synchrony with the Londe text in the sense that amateur photographs were faithfully reflecting the photographic traditions of that time. A search for the instant is seen, trying to foresee the first reportages, the first night shots, the beginnings of the color technique through autochromes. This photographic culture that began with landscapes, leisure, will find its achievement in the photographic excursions by the Société d’excursions des amateurs de photographie (SEAP) founded by Albert Londe on July 4th, 1887 and active until 1938.

In its path, the exhibition studies these observations and evolves into four themes.

In Room 1 the “Amateur portrait” is found, a practice that has developed by the end of the 19th century and resulted in numerous group portraits.

Rooms 2 and 3 are devoted to the technical challenges. The first one refers to the mastering of the instantaneous and the light. The second, color rendition through the autochrome created by the brothers Lumière in 1903 and commercialized in 1907. Landscapes and night time illuminations of the capital are found, by Léon Gimpel, Charles Adrien et Louise Delagne.

Room 4 is dedicated to Albert Londe (1858-1917), chemist by training, but self taught photographer. His experiments that allowed him to register movement are well known, but less popular is his involvement in encouraging amateurs to experiment.

Room 5 is dedicated to Reportage and modernity during the Belle Époque.

At the beginning of the 20th century, photography was used more and more as the source of illustration. Magazines launch “calls for amateurs”. They urge their readers to send their “shots”, or they organize contests. The mechanical innovations, such as car races, flying machines… become privileged subjects. For the curators, these “illustrations of leisure have forged in retrospect the imaginative of the Belle Époque and its atmosphere of carefreeness”.

In room 6 Léon Gimpel and Louis Vert are portrayed as chroniclers of the Parisian life. They appear as two pioneer figures of the Parisian life. Louis Vert (1865-1924), professional printer, photographs homeless people, walking itinerants… in the tradition of engraving.

The other, Léon Gimpel (1873-1948), comes from photoengraving. As a correspondent for “L’illustration” he does not hesitate to disrupt the premises of the technique in order to innovate and answer to the magazines commissions. He will modify the chemical elements from the autochromes in order to take night time color photographs.

Room 7 is focused on the Pittoresque and Naturalisme, the beginning of tourism. As a part of their famous excursions, the amateurs would photograph the surroundings of cities and, in the province, the everyday life in the countryside. The curators show that their privileged use of color “testifies once more an allegiance to the pictorial model.” In addition, vacations, trips to play winter sports, or swimming in the sea, clearly show that in their leisure time, the amateurs were quite privileged.

Room 8 proposes an excursion to Touraine with the reconstitution of the projection “La Touraine”, by Émile Corvée on the occasion of the 1933 contest of the Société d’Excursions des Amateurs de photographie. Corvée had already received the first prize of the Congress of the French Union Nationale des Sociétés Photographiques.

The exhibition and most of all the catalogue that accompanies it proposes a certain number of texts by photographers that have been part of this “Amateurs’ Republic”. They also propose a glossary where definitions and explanations on many processes of those days can be found. Lastly, this exhibition shows us the difference between an amateur of that time and a current amateur.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr