The last representative of the “humanist” photo died on December 28 at the age of 97. Beyond his post-war photos, the sparkling photographer, fierce worker, touched both the commercial photo and portrait, and knew the celebrity at the end of his life.
This summer 2021, the star of the meetings of Arles, it was she: Sabine Weiss, 97 years old. It was necessary to queue to visit his exposure to the renovated Arlaten Museon, as if to obtain a dedication. Despite the Provencal heat and his advanced age, the photographer, sitting behind his piles of pounds under a parasol, did not blame his pleasure, sweeping any suggestion pause of a formula shock: “When the ball is launched, you have to dance! “The indefatigable photographer with a well-tempered character died on December 28, at the age of 97, at home, in Paris – a small apartment where she had settled as early as 1950, and that she had filled with RAS His memories of travels, bin objects and paintings of her adored husband, the painter Hugh Weiss.
His longevity has allowed him to enjoy a late recognition and celebrity. Like those of Robert Doisneau or Willy Ronis, the work of Sabine Weiss took advantage of the nostalgic and popular wave that seized from the 2000s the images of the so-called “humanistic” photographers, who photographed the post-war period. focusing on everyday life, captured in poetic and tender images. But Sabine Weiss has also benefited from the renewed interest in recent years to women photographers, long left in the shadows – allowing the public to discover a much larger, subtle and varied work than children’s photos to which we have long summarized.
“The work of Sabine Weiss was considered even or even mediocre, remark Virginie Chardin, exhibition commissioner who, with the assistant of photographer, Laure Augustin, worked on the archives, and organized several exhibitions . It took Marta Gili’s willingness, Director of the Paume Game, who wanted to expose it in 2016, so that I immerse myself in his archives, and that it accesses a real institutional recognition. The Pompidou Center showed More formal, less known images. And an extraordinary popular success followed. “Sabine Weiss received the Women in Motion Award for photography in 2020 and saw his work greeted by a book in the pocket photo collection in 2021
It must be said that this woman still in action, hardworking and modest, has long been indifferent to returns on the past, and has always considered a craftsman, and not as an artist.
A talented handler
Born in Saint-Gingolph, Switzerland, Sabine Weiss is a mediocre student, but a talented handler. The photography, with its technical side, the passionate and gives the girl, who lost his mother very young, the opportunity to leave the house and earn a living. After training in a famous studio of Geneva, she arrives in Paris in 1946 following a sorrow of love, without a penny but not short of resources: “I have always had work. At first, J ‘Already seeing traders, I proposed to photograph their showcase against a little money. And little by little, I had more and more customers, “she said in the world.
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