Hélène's trips, a life-time spent on documenting the world
Helene Roger-Viollet, equipped with her Rolleiflex, travels the world in the 1950's-1970's: America, Asia, Africa, …
As the eldest daughter of Henri Roger-Viollet, an amateur photographic engineer, she grew up with her father's experiments. She also trained as a journalist and created the Roger-Viollet photographic agency in 1938 with her husband Jean Fischer.
His travels around the world were a pretext to complete, document and enrich the existing photographic archives. At a time when travelling was not so easy, Hélène Roger-Viollet wished to bear witness to the life, daily life and customs of distant peoples. In the manner of an ethnologist, she documented all her encounters and discoveries with square photographs. As she pointed out in a documentary made in 1981, "We did not make reports but produced documents to enrich the collections of documents that were missing".
Throughout her 30 years of photography, Hélène Roger-Viollet built up a body of work that combines the documentary evidences with an aesthetic all her own.
In 1985, at the age of 84, she was tragically murdered by her husband Jean Fischer, with whom she had shared fifty years of her life. The photo collection was then bequeathed to the City of Paris. It is now preserved by the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris.
Les Voyages d'Hélène is the first exhibition entirely dedicated to her photographic and historical work.
Ice-cream seller. Paludo (Salamis, Greecee), May 1952.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Sand desert in the south, after Tatahouine. Tunisia, February 1965.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Desert. Wadi-Halfa (Sudan), February 1955.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Second cataract of the Nile. Sudan (Africa),1955.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Ghorfa (living attic). Medenine (Tunisia), February 1965.
Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
School children on a path lined with euphorbia. Mexico, March 1956.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
On the site of the Basilica of the Shrine of Guadalupe. Around Mexico City (Mexico), December 1955.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Group of musicians in front of a bar. Veracruz (Mexico), February 1956.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Children watching in a store protected from the sun by wrapping paper. Malaga (Spain), January 1957.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Kids playing soccer in front of Santa Maria de l'Alhambra Church. Grenade (Spain), January 1957.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Iwan and court of the King's Mosque (1612-1637), Isfahan (Iran), 1958.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
South of Wadi Halfa (Sudan), 1955
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Manufacture of palm leaf hats. Island of Saint-Barthélemy (French West Indies), 1959.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Soldiers of Fidel Castro's guard on Cuba's independence day. Havana (Cuba), February 24, 1959.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Sugar cane harvest. Martinique (near Ducos), February 1959.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Fisherman mending his nets. Fond Lahaye (Martinique), February 1959.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Saint Kitts airfield (former Saint Kitts Island). English West Indies, February 1959.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet et Jean Fischer
Island of Saint-Barthélemy (French West Indies), 1959.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Haitian dancers. Haiti, March 1959.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
The market on the port. Port-au-Prince (Haiti), February 1959.
Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Docker of the port. Madras (Tamil Nadu, India). 1961.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Rickshaws. Pondicherry (India), 1961.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
The Howrah, bridge over the Hughli. Calcutta (Bengal, India), 1961.
Photo Jean-Régis Roustan
The docks near the port of Pondicherry. India, 1961.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Pilgrims. Benares (Uttar Pradesh, India), 1961.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Bear showman. Around Agra (Uttar Pradesh, India), 1961.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Detail of an Apsara (western entrance pavilion, northern tower, western façade, southern panel), 12th century. Angkor Wat (Cambodia), January 1962.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Gilded wooden Buddhas of Sanjusangen-do temple. Kyoto (Japan), March 1962.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
A street in the amusement district at night, near the central station. Osaka (Japan), March 1962.
Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Bales of rice and sake offered and labeled with the names of the donors, in front of the "Chion-in" temple. Kyoto (Japan), March 1962.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Manufacture of kimonos : drying. Kyoto (Japan), March 1962.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Bus and Passenger Receivers. Near Kawaguchi (Japan), March 1962.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Window of a massage parlour.Tokyo (Japan), March 1962.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Newspaper merchant. Taipei (Taiwan), 1962.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Woman and musical instrument of the Atayals tribe. Taiwan, 1962.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
The Patuxai, triumphal arch dedicated to the memory of Laotian soldiers who died during the Second World War and for the independence of the country from France. Vientiane (Laos), December 1963.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Barber. Bobo-Dioulasso (Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso), February 1963.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Tam-tam player. Bouaké (Ivory Coast), February 1963.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Place de l'Indépendance. Dakar (Senegal), 1963.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Ngor (Sénégal), 1963.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Aerial view of the Virgin Forest between Bonaké and Abidjan. Ivory Coast (Black Africa), 1963.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Sale of soursops. Saigon (Vietnam), January 1964.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Darwin (Australia), February 1964.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet et Jean Fischer
Grauman's Chinese Theater. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Etats-Unis), March 1964.
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Drive-in customer. Los Angeles (United States), 1964.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Western Skies Hotel sign. Around Albuquerque (New Mexico, USA), April 1964.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
The East River and the Queensboro Bridge seen from a window of the U.N. building in New York (United States), May 1964.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
The Broadway district around 50th Street. New York (Unites States), December 1955.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Stern of the ship "France". March 1972.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Hélène Roger-Viollet (1901-1985) on top of the temple of Baal (orBel), photographed by her guide. Palmyra (Syria), November 1953.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Interior of the Ghriba synagogue. Hara Sghira (Djerba, Tunisia), February 1965.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Balcony of the Khalifa's house. Omdurman (Sudan), January 1966.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Johannesburg (South Africa), 1966.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Maboukor tribe (South Africa), 1966.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Johannesburg (South Africa), 1966.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Lambaréné (Gabon), March 1966.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Indian mother and children in their hut. Inini Territory (French Guiana), March 1969.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet
Carved door of Moorish style located in the old city. Zanzibar Island (Tanzania), February 1974.
Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
The tomb of the Askias (around 1525). Truncated pyramid made of dried mud (banco) with wooden frames. Gao, Mali, February 1973.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Bull head from a capital of the palace of Darius I (515-520 BC). Persepolis (Iran), January 1958.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet & Jean Fischer
Trickery, bilocation (doubling) of Henri Roger and his 6 children in 1918. First from the left, standing, Hélène at the age of 17, future founder of the Roger-Viollet agency. Henri Roger in uniform.
Photo Henri Roger
Self-portrait of Henri Roger in his laboratory, January 24, 1892.
Photo Henri Roger
The five Roger-Viollet daughters in the living room (in the center, Hélène Roger-Viollet). Paris, May 1911.
Photo Henri Roger
Paid vacations. Hélène Roger-Viollet and Jean Fischer going on vacation on foot. France, 1936.
Photo Roger-Viollet
Hélène Roger-Viollet next to the Talbot automobile, in front of the Roger-Viollet photographic agency, 6, rue de Seine. Paris, June 1947.
Photo Roger-Viollet
Spanish War (1936-1939). Anarchists occupying a convent later transformed into a refectory for the militia (Hélène Roger-Viollet among them). On the left, a man hides a poster which indicated: "property of the State". Seo de Urgel (Catalonia), July 1936.
Photo Roger-Viollet
Hélène Roger-Viollet (1901-1985), french photographer, with two soldiers of Fidel Castro's liberation army. Havana (Cuba), March 1959.
Photo Jean Fischer
Jean-Victor Fischer, with two soldiers of Fidel Castro's liberation army. Havana (Cuba), March 1959.
Photo Hélène Roger-Viollet