Les 30 × 40

Les 30 × 40 or Le Club photographique de Paris was a photography club created in Paris in 1952 by Roger Doloy who was its president, with vice-president was Jean-Claude Gautrand, photographer and author and honorary president Jean-Pierre Sudre, professional photographer. The club produced bimonthly a mimeographed A4 publication Jeune Photographie, compensating for its lack of pictures with the quality of the texts. The group regularly organised exhibitions in the lobby of Studio 28, a cinema located at 28, rue Tholozé in Paris. Amongst its members It boasted six Niépce Prize winners : Jean Dieuzaide, Robert Doisneau, Jean-Pierre Ducatez, Léon Herschtritt, Jean-Louis Swiners and Patrick Zachmann. The club was dissolved in 1998.

History

The name of the club, “Les 30 × 40”, derived from the minimum dimensions in centimetres of the prints admitted for discussion and exhibition. It met every Thursday in the salons of the Club Alpine, 10 rue La Boétie, 75008 Paris, then at the Maison pour Tous (rue Mouffetard) and at the Center international de séjour in Paris. Its photographers including Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein and even Marc Riboud, covered the events of May 68 on a daily basis documented in hundreds of pictures taken by its members, many not published at the time, all exhibited in rue Mouffetard in Paris.

After a discussion on the photographic (and other media) exhibitions, the members of the club followed by their guests presented their work and received a critique, in particular from Daniel Masclet, an seasoned photographer, who was present at all the sessions and seated in "His" armchair, in the first row.

The reputation of the club was such that it hosted the significant American, European and other photographers passing through Paris. Few were the weeks when a foreign international photographer was not present on Thursday.

These meetings and the exhibitions organised by members of the club inspired the vocation of some professional photographers.

Some members

• Pierre-Jean Amar
• Christiane Barrier
• John Batho
• Jean-Philippe Charbonnier
• Arnaud Claass
• Alain Cognard
• Jean Dieuzaide
• Robert Doisneau
• Jean-Pierre Ducatez
• Agathe Gaillard
• Jean-Claude Gautrand
• Léon Herschtritt
• Bernard Just
• Michel Kempf
• Daniel Lebée
• Jean-Claude Lemagny
• Daniel Masclet
• Jean-Jacques Meusy
• Francis Richard
• Willy Ronis
• Louis-Victor Emmanuel Sougez
• Jean-Pierre Sudre (honorary president)
• Jean-Louis Swiners
• Patrick Taberna
• Yvette Troispoux
• Raoul Vaslin
• Alexandre Vitkine
• Patrick Zachmann
• Xavier Zimbardo

Bibliography

• Roger Doloy, ed. Association Traces, Joinville-le-Pont, 1999 (ISBN 978-2-913948-00-6)
• Céline Gautier, Aurélie Aujard, Mademoiselle Yvette Troispoux photographe, Contrejour, 2012.
• Agathe Gaillard, Mémoire d’une galerie, Gallimard, 2013.