Behind this double title, this exhibition and book reveal the intentions of the two curators, Anne de Mondenard and Marc Pagneux, providing a new reading of the beginnings of photography, accompanied by a few additional discoveries.

Four years in the works, the preliminary research for this exhibition began during Mondenard’s preparation of the exhibition and book, La Mission héliographique. “During my research, I noticed disturbing similarities (shades of sepia, compositions, subjects) among certain photographs whose authorship and history were in question.” Recent discoveries have substantiated those intuitions. Documents, including the estate of a notary, a student of Le Gray, corroborate the fact that Le Gray had students, and the list of them established by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for its major Le Gray exhibition in 2002 will have to be lengthened. Joining Le Secq, Nègre, Greene and Salzmann are the names of Bérenger, Deessert, Du Manoir and especially Alphonse Delaunay (1827–1906), all absent from the history of photography. Rediscovered by chance at an estate sale, Delaunay’s body of work contains around 250 prints produced over a period of 25 years. According to the curators, these fifty names form the “Photographers of the Circle of Gustance Le Gray.”

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Read the full text of this article in the French version of Le Journal.

Exhibition :
"Modernisme ou modernité
Les photographes du cercle de Gustave Le Gray (1850-1860)"
From october 3rd 2012, to January 6th, 2013
Petit Palais
Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris
Avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris - France
+33(0)153 43 40 00
Tuesday-Sunday - 10am - 6pm
Thursday, until 8pm

Edition :
"Modernisme ou modernité, Photographes du cercle de Gustave Le Gray"
Texts Anne de Mondenard and Marc Pagneux
Éditions Actes Sud.
Format 250x280mm
408 pages, 200 photographies.