January 2016
"There is a sweet scent of freedom and carelessness over the group and its production, typical of the interwar period "(1)
In 1936, Denise Bellon, Pierre Boucher, René Zuber, organized a summer trip to Morocco, probably influenced by the stories and photographs of Pierre Verger who returned from a trip to Africa where he had traveled through Sudan, Dahomey, and Togo, Niger. Pierre Verger, also in charge of the photography laboratory at the Ethnography Museum, was also part of the Alliance Photo group and her photos were marketed by Maria Eisner.(2)
A tremendous spirit of freedom animated this group of friends, who wanted to live their life like a Dionysian party, celebrating the beauty of bodies, nature and naturism, happy moments, hiking along the rivers of France, camping, ski, but also, sensitive to a freedom they associated with modernity, they photographed the means of transport, with close-ups of the locomotives, airplanes, architectures. They seem to be constantly shared by a desire to "life to catch up", as André Breton put it.(3)
Charismatic personality, René Zuber stayed in Leipzig, in Germany, Marked by the book by Albert Renger -Patzsch "Die Welt Ist Schön" -the world is beautiful -.
The Maison de la Photographie de Marrakech was created by Hamid Mergani and Patrick Manac’h to be primarily an archive on Morocco. Very quickly, stood out from the periods, movements; so, Alliance Photo, allowed for a magnificent inflorescence of images, of 1935 at 1938, in Morocco. We know the actors: Denise Bellon, Pierre Boucher, René Zuber. The archives of the Maison de la Photography have a representative set of the artistic and human dynamics of this group. They also traveled in various other countries and the photo alliance way is found in the clichés taken in their various journeys.
Finding photo prints of Alliance Photo members was not easy. The Maison de la Photographie strives to constitute an archive on Morocco. As well, gradually, we bought photographs in order to constitute a coherent whole on these photographers. We want one day a retrospective on the works of these photographers in Morocco. Our wish is only to keep the memory of this generous movement of photography, of which Morocco was a land of predilection. We have retained images that are certainly "beautiful", no sentimental images, evocative of a nostalgic past, but on the contrary, modern images. Modernity is here the attention paid to everyday life, to individuals photographed with a respect linked to the fascination of discovering other cultures, other environments, different architectures. We can better understand what our way of seeing the eyes of these photographers. Our purpose is not to show advertising or possibly "political" uses, images.
(1) «The studio Zuber, 1931-1939 », Montmajour Abbey, Arles photographic meetings, 2007. Quote Claire Guillot.
(2)« Alliance Photo, Photographic agency 1934-1940 », exhibition of 27 October 1988 at 9 January 1989, Historical Library of the City of Paris, Lamoignon Hotel. Thomas Michael Gunther, exhibition curator, Marie de Thézy, curator of photographic collections.
(3)"For those who know how to carry out the photographic boat in the almost incomprehensible swirl of images, there is life to catch up ”, in André Breton, "Surrealism and painting", 1928, Gallimard, Folio / Essays, 2002, p. 55.