Gaston Paris, a fantastic eye
French photographer Gaston Paris (1903-1964), whose work is being rehabilitated, has put together an impressive collection thanks to a powerful style and an incredible variety of topics, starting with the festive 1930’s until the difficulties of the post-World War II period. Both a humanist photographer and a photo-reporter, Gaston Paris is above all an illustrative photographer who documented his time most often with humour and empathy. His black and white photographs seem to describe the world as a theatre, showing scenes of love, joy but also labour or even expectations and hope. Daily life scenes meet entertainment ones and even re-enactments of fights and crimes. Portraits of anonymous stand next to shots of celebrities, also merging with images of wax mannequins, whose disarticulated bodies are reminiscent of Surrealism.
Circus. Trapeze. France, around 1935.
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Chalais-Meudon airplane wind tunnel. Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), 1936.
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Ballet at the Paris Opera, around 1937-1938.
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Rose window and worker in backlight at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, 1935.
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Worker on a construction site. France, 1938.
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Chalais-Meudon airplane wind tunnel. Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), 1936.
availableHis cinema experience led him to shoot his models with frontal and direct lighting, modelling their bodies and faces with the effects of shadow and light. There is something sculptural in Gaston Paris’ photographic style. Shapes are monumentalized, volumes are sublimated. His images of urban and industrial landscapes, always very graphic, match perfectly in a square frame determined by his systematic choice of a Rolleiflex camera.
Factory chimney. Paris, around 1935.
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Worker in a railway workshop, working on the mechanism of a steam locomotive. France, around 1945.
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Viaduct of Austerlitz. Barrage of barges on the Seine during a strike of bargemen. Paris, 1940.
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Aerial view of the Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre. Paris (18th district), 1936.
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Eiffel Tower. Paris (7th district), around 1945.
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Eiffel Tower. Paris (7th district), around 1955.
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Couple. Paris, around 1950.
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Backstage at the Opéra Garnier. Paris, around 1937-1938.
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Closing time of a café. Paris, around 1935.
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Sailors. Brest (Finistère), around 1935.
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Policeman in the storm. Paris, around 1940.
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Guard at the prison of Aniane (Hérault), penitentiary for children. 1946.
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Boxing match. France, around 1937-1938.
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Circus. "Les Clerans", duo of French trapeze artists Charlie Gérardin (aerialist) and Stéphane Hégédus (carrier). France, around 1936.
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Circus. Lasso by Sylvie Carson. France, around 1935.
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Circus. Knife throwing. France, around 1935.
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Circus. Knife throwing. France, around 1935.
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Fairground, naked dancers with a snake. Paris, 1935.
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Circus. Lora Rode, the woman with the horse. France, around 1937-1939.
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Circus, trapeze artists. France, around 1935.
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Miss Dora (Madame Contal), contortionist dancer. Paris, around 1935.
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Lodges of the Folies-Bergère. Paris, 1935.
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Dance School of the Paris Opera. Students of Albert Aveline's class. Paris, around 1937-1938.
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Lodges of the Folies-Bergère. Paris, 1935.
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International Exhibition of Surrealism. Mannequin of Sonia Mossé (deceased in 1943). Galerie des Beaux-Arts of Georges Wildenstein, 140 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. Paris (8th district), January 1938.
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The wax figure of Violette Nozières (1915-1966) is disassembled and replaced by that of Serge Alexandre Stavisky (1888-1934). Musée Grévin, Paris, around 1934.
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Nude study. France, around 1937-1939.
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International Exhibition of Surrealism. Mannequin by Kurt Seligmann. Galerie des Beaux-Arts of Georges Wildenstein, 140 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. Paris (8th district), January 1938.
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Wax mannequin. Dupuytren Museum, rue de l'Ecole-de-Médecine. Paris (VIth district), around 1930.
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Communicant. France, around 1950.
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"The Mage of Berlin". Man with a pipe holding a human skull. Berlin, 1945-1946.
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International Exhibition of Surrealism. Mannequin by Maurice Henry. Galerie des Beaux-Arts of Georges Wildenstein, 140 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. Paris (8th district), January 1938.
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Fairground attraction, Striptease "The Robot". "Man you will be defeated by your own robot" is written at the entrance of the attraction. France, around 1936.
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"Nightmare", composition. France, around 1953.
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"Murder Scene", composition. France, 1950's.
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"Murder Scene", composition. France, 1950's.
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"Murder Scene", composition. France, 1950's.
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"La clef des songes" (The key to the dreams), composition. France, 1950's.
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Reconstruction of a murder scene. France, 1950's.
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Edith Georges (1931-1981), french actress, dancer and singer. France, around 1950.
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Young man. France, 1950's.
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Circus artist. France, around 1935.
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Women in a fairground. France, around 1935.
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Henri Salvador (1917-2008), French singer-songwriter. France, around 1950.
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Brigitte Bardot (born 1934), French actress. France, around 1954-1955.
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Kiki de Montparnasse (1901-1953), French singer, actress, model and painter. Paris, 1934.
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Josephine Baker (1906-1975), American naturalized French music-hall performer in Jacques Offenbach's (1819-1880) operetta "La Créole" at the Théâtre Marigny. Paris (8th district), December 1934.
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Line Renaud (born 1928), French singer and actress, at La Jonchère. Rueil-Malmaison (Hauts-de-Seine), around 1955.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907-1977), French director. Paris, around 1954.
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Sculpted head of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist and theorist naturalized American. Musée Grévin. Paris (9th district), around 1935.
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André Dignimont (1891-1965), French painter, at home. Paris, around 1940.
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Edith Piaf (1915-1963), French singer. France, around 1937.
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Wax bust of Greta Garbo (1905-1990), Swedish actress. Musée Grévin. Paris (9th district), around 1935.
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Benedictine monk in a corridor of the abbey, Saint-Wandrille (Seine-Maritime), around 1935.
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Charles Dullin (1885-1949) in Volpone by Jules Romains, after Ben Jonson. Paris, Théâtre de l'Atelier, September 1937.
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Noël-Noël (1897-1989), French actor and director. Paris, théâtre de l'A.B.C., around 1950.
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The clown Joe Jackson at the circus Médrano. Paris, 1934.
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Josephine Baker (1906-1975), American music-hall artist naturalized French. Paris, around 1935.
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Review show of the Folies-Bergère. Paris (9th district), 1935.
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Weaving workshop of the Gobelins factory. Paris, around 1935.
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Gaston Paris photographing a mirror ball above a carousel. France, around 1937.
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Anne Doat (born 1936), French actress, and Gaston Paris in a mirror, next to the Luxor obelisk. Paris (8th district), place de la Concorde, around 1954.
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Mirror effect on a sphere. Self-portrait of Gaston Paris. France, around 1935.
availableAs the only salaried photographer of the magazine VU, he closely contributed with the magazine Art et Médecine. He was also a member of Rectangle, an association of French illustrative and advertising photographers, alongside Emmanuel Sougez or Pierre Jahan... His work pictured numerous illustrated magazines that were very fashionable at the time. After his death in 1964, the Roger-Viollet photo agency bought his collection (around 15,000 negatives). Nowadays, his photographs are housed by the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris and distributed in exclusivity by Roger-Viollet. This exhibition echoes and completes the one organized jointly at the Centre Pompidou under the title "Gaston Paris. La photographie en spectacle".
Children of the suburbs in Paris. France, 1936.
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Children of the suburbs in Paris. France, 1936.
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Poor children in a Parisian suburb. Circa 1936.
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Boys in the ruins of Berlin-East, after 1945.
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Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Exodus of Republicans in France, January 1939.
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Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Exodus of Republicans in France, January 1939.
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Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Arrival of civilian refugees in France, January 1939.
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Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Exodus. France, January 1939.
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Gaston Paris photographer in the army, in uniform. 1945.
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Royflex advertising. Around 1955.
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