Inside AFP

AFP Opens its Photo Gallery in Paris with the Exhibition "Paris 1944, a Week in August"

On 12 September, Agence France-Presse (AFP) will inaugurate its first gallery dedicated to photography with an exceptional exhibition celebrating the liberation of Paris, marking its 80th anniversary this year. 

 

 

Located within the premises of the renowned news agency at 9 Place de la Bourse, the AFP Gallery will offer three free exhibitions each year, with the aim of providing the public with events of museum-quality calibre. 

The exhibitions will showcase the work of the esteemed photographers who have shaped the reputation of AFP's photo service, with many of the works available for purchase. 

"With this in-house photo gallery, AFP continues its outreach to the general public and collectors, a journey that began in 2021 with exhibitions followed by auctions of limited-edition prints," says Marielle Eudes, AFP's Director of Special Photo Projects. 

 

 

The Inaugural Exhibition: "Paris 1944, a Week in August" 

"Paris 1944, a Week in August" focuses on the week of Paris's Liberation, which also marks the birth of AFP, with its first news story released on 20 August 1944. 

AFP offers a dialogue between photographs taken by the agency's professionals, drawn from its exceptional archive, and amateur images captured by Parisians during the Liberation, sourced from the Fournier-Eymard collection. 

Numerous professionals, including war correspondents and agency photographers, dedicated themselves to documenting the final battles within the heart of the capital. Among them were several who worked with AFP from its earliest days (the former Havas Agency, placed under German control in 1940, was taken over by the insurgents on 20 August 1944 and renamed Agence Française de Presse).  

They rallied around Henri Membré, who, with a FFI armband on his sleeve, coordinated his colleagues’ reports as best he could. Following the Liberation, Membré would go on to establish AFP's photographic service. 

Meanwhile, Parisians retrieved their folding cameras, long stored away since the German ordinance of 16 September 1940, which banned outdoor photography. Those who still had film bravely defied the dangers and the snipers on rooftops. Their photos, often blurry, taken from a distance, and not always perfectly framed, capture the exhilaration of a moment they knew to be historic. Hundreds of these images would eventually form part of the rich collection assembled by Alain Eymard and Laurent Fournier, two passionate enthusiasts and experts on the Leclerc Division and the liberation of Paris. 

This visual conversation reminds us that while photographs remain an irreplaceable source for establishing historical truths, they are also a powerful emotional conduit, allowing the viewer to engage personally with history. The project was born of a chance encounter: during an AFP exhibition in the autumn of 2022, a visitor meticulously examined a series of photographs, taking notes in a school notebook. The elderly gentleman, wearing a cap and speaking with a Parisian accent, addressed the curators: “This photo cannot be from 24 August 1944, because it rained that morning.” Numerous discussions followed, revealing the curious visitor to be a true expert on the period. 

Alain Eymard passionately recounts how he, alongside his collaborator Laurent Fournier, gathered photographs of the liberation. These images are stored in blue, white, and red binders, which they scrutinise under a magnifying glass, hunting for hidden details, such as shop signs, buildings, and street names. They cross-reference these details with a 1941 directory, found in a second-hand bookshop, listing the businesses and professions in the Seine department. They identify the locations, days, and even hours with remarkable precision. 

This meticulous work aims to create a highly accurate film of those historic days. Their expertise even led them to correct some of AFP's captions. 

 

The AFP exhibition "Paris 1944, a Week in August" has been awarded the national label "80th Anniversary of the Liberation." 

 

Excerpt from the text by Gilles Mora, photography historian, published in the exhibition catalogue 

The High Value of Archives 

A photographic archive is a highly valuable historical document. It focuses the essential questions raised by photography, particularly its documentary essence. For those who have explored this topic and made it the core of their image-making activity, the American Walker Evans stands as a pioneer. His approach to documenting reality through photography could have confined him to a subordinate role, devoid of any artistic ambition. However, by creating the documentary style, Walker Evans reshuffled the deck, ensuring that photography did not merely become a simple formality of recording facts. Yet, for the viewer, confronting an anonymous photographic archive, assembled around an event by "photographers without qualities," to borrow the evocative title of Robert Musil’s novel, constitutes an act of appropriating history. Such acts should be encouraged, for understanding the past is the key to comprehending the present. The work done by AFP around the liberation of Paris in August 1944 facilitates this necessary engagement. 

Excerpt from the text by Éric Karsenty, correspondent for the photography section of the Académie des Beaux-Arts (Academy of Fine Arts), published in the exhibition catalogue. 

History Under the Microscope 

It is as though a slice of time has been cut from the flow of events, a highly sensitive surface that still trembles before us. Like the image of two children holding hands on Rue d'Assas, beside a partially destroyed blockhouse. Like the arrest of a sniper, captured in the blur of motion, conveying the intensity of the moment. Like the sequences of images, whose tremor reveals the courage and bravery of amateur photographers risking their lives to bear witness to these historical moments. And at the heart of this work, the facsimile of an album compiled by a Parisian, where each photograph is meticulously captioned. 

 

 

 

 

The exhibition catalogue "Paris 1944, a Week in August" will be available for purchase at the AFP Gallery for €15. 

 

 

 

 

AFP Gallery Opening on Thursday, 12 September 2024

9, place de la Bourse
75002 Paris

Inaugural Exhibition: "Paris 1944, a Week in August" 

From 12 September to 2 November 2024,

  • Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm 
  • Guided tours on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2:30pm (length: 45 min)

 

 

  • 1 / 4

  • 2 / 4

  • 3 / 4

  • 4 / 4

1. From 18 August 1944, the onset of the uprising to liberate Paris was accompanied by a proliferation of posters in the streets of the capital. Calls for mobilisation multiplied. © AFP 

2. Place de la Concorde, 26 August 1944, a burnt-out German Panther tank after the only tank battle fought the previous day. © Collection Fournier-Eymard/AFP 

3. A Parisian woman, the wife of cameraman Gaston Madru, expresses her joy by kissing General de Gaulle during the parade on the Champs-Élysées on 26 August 1944. © AFP 

4. Arrest of a sniper, 26 August 1944. © Collection Fournier-Eymard/AFP 

 

Download the press release (available in French only)

Download the press kit (available in French only) 

Contact us