Sabine Weiss (photographer)

Sabine Weiss was born in Saint-Gingolph, Switzerland on July 23, 1924. Along with Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Edouard Boubat and Izis, she is one of the main representatives of the French humanist photography movement.

Biography

Sabine Weiss’ father was a chemical engineer and made artificial pearls from fish scales. The family lived next to the border post and left Saint-Gingolph while she was still a child. Attracted at a young age by photography, she says: "I realized very young that photography would be my means of expression. I was more visual than intellectual ... I was not very good at studying. I left high school, I left on a summer day on a bicycle. Sabine Weiss began to photograph in 1932 with a bakelite camera bought with her pocket money. Her father supported her in her choice, and she later learned photographic technique, from 1942 to 1946, from Frédéric Boissonnas, a studio photographer in Geneva. She graduated in 1945.

Paris

She moved to Paris in 1946 and became Willy Maywald's assistant: "When I came to Paris, I was able to work at Maywald, whom a friend had recommended to me. I worked there in unimaginable conditions today, but with him I understood the importance of natural light. Natural light as a source of emotion “. Willy Maywald was working at that time on the first floor of a shed on 22 Jacob Street which belonged to an antique dealer, there was neither water nor telephone. This work nevertheless allows her to rub shoulders with the who’s who of Paris of the time. She thus attended the opening of the house of Dior and the presentation of the first collection at 37 Avenue Montaigne. In 1949, she traveled to Italy and met the American painter Hugh Weiss, whom she married on September 23, 1950. The couple adopted a daughter, Marion. She opened her own studio. Her photographs testify to the optimism of the post-Liberation years: "It was a beautiful period. We were between the end of the German occupation and the beginning of Americanization. People came out of a terrible ordeal and thought they could rebuild everything, "she says.

She works in various sectors: passionate about music, she portrayed the big names in music (Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Pablo Casals, Stan Getz ...) but also those of literature and art (Fernand Leger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jean Pougny, Alberto Giacometti and Annette Giacometti, Robert Rauschenberg, Jan Voss, Jean Dubuffet, Françoise Sagan ...), cinema (Jeanne Moreau), fashion (Coco Chanel). She also works for several magazines and newspapers known in America and Europe for advertising and press orders (Vogue, Paris Match, Life, Time Magazine, Town and Country, Holiday, Newsweek, etc.). Finally, she travels the world as a photojournalist.

The Rapho agency

From 1950, she was represented by Agence Rapho, the leading French press agency managing the work of Robert Doisneau. He offers her a place in the agency after a meeting in the office of the Director of Vogue. She befriends personalities from the artistic community such as Jean Cocteau, Maurice Utrillo, Georges Rouault, and Jacques-Henri Lartigue.

The fact that she is one of the few women in the world of photography at the time is not a problem. For photojournalist Hans Silvester, who worked with her on the people of Omo (Ethiopia): "Although she is in a very masculine environment, she has really managed to be accepted immediately, to establish herself as what she is since: a very great photographer whom I esteem and admire“

In 1955, Edward Steichen chose three of her photographs for the Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man which travelled the world and was seen by 9 million visitors.

In 1957, she made a series of photographs of the painter Kees van Dongen whom she met through her husband, and on impulse they buy a small shed overlooking the ruins of the castle at Grimaud. They enlarge the house in 1969 and stay regularly until the death of her husband in 2007. In 1983, she obtained a scholarship from the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs and carried out a Study on the Copts of Egypt. In 1992, the same ministry issued another scholarship to study Réunion.

Despite her successes and the publication of some 40 books, including Sabine Weiss's 100 photos of press freedom by Reporters Without Borders in 2007, Sabine Weiss remains a discreet personality and little known to the general public. She is photographed by Gilles Dacquin in 20076.

Her photographs are distributed by the agency Gamma-Rapho.

In 2017, Sabine Weiss donated her entire archive, which contained 200,000 negatives, 7,000 contact sheets, around 2,700 vintage prints and 2,000 late prints, 3,500 prints and 2,000 slides at the Musée de Paris. Elysée, Lausanne

Bibliography

1960s

* J'aime le théâtre, de Catherine Valogne, Éditions Rencontres, Suisse, 1962, 301.p. In-12, illustrated with B&W photography.

* Une semaine de la vie de Daniel, Éditions Mac Millain, USA, 1969

1970s

* En passant, Éditions Contrejour, France, 1978

1980s

* Marchés et Foires de Paris, Éditions ACE, France, 1982

* Intimes convictions, by Claude Nori, Éditions Contrejour, France, 1989

1990s

* Hadad, Peintres, Éditions Cercle d'Art, 1992

* Vu à Pontoise, Éditions municipales, 1992

* La Réunion, Éditions de la galerie Vincent, Saint Pierre, 1995

* Bulgarie, Éditions Fata Morgana, 1996

* Giacometti, Éditions Fata Morgana, 1997

* Des enfants, text by Marie Nimier, Éditions Hazan, 1997, (ISBN 2-85025-574-2)

2000s

* Poussettes, charrettes et roulettes, Musée de Bièvres, 2000

* André Breton, text by Julien Gracq, Édition Fata Morgana, 2000

* Sabine Weiss soixante ans de photographie, by Jean Vautrin and Sabine Weiss aux Éditions de La Martinière, 2003

* Claudia de Medici, 2004

* Musiciens des villes et des campagnes, par Sabine Weiss, Gabriel Bauret et Ingrid Jurzak (Filigranes Editions), 2006, (ISBN 9 782350 460741)

* See and Feel, Éditions ABP (Pays-Bas), 2007

Années 2010

* "Masques et Rites, Burkina Faso", in the revue d'art TROU, no 20, 2010

* l'Œil intime, Presses de e-Center, 2011, (ISBN 978-2-35130-056-5)

* l'Œil intime, Impression Escourbiac, new edition October 2014, (ISBN 978-2-95493-890-5)

* Sabine Weiss, co-edition with Jeu de Paume / La Martinière, preface by Marta Gili, text by Virginie Chardin, June 2016