7/28/2019 Northern Survey by Martine Franck/Cartier-Bresson
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NORTHERN SURVEY
MARTINE FRANCK
Born in 1938, Martine Franck was slow to pick up a camera. It
wasnt until the later stages of
her art history studies that she realised she wanted to go out
and create something herself:
I think I was shy as a young woman and realised that photography
was an ideal way of
expressing myself, or telling people what was going on without
having to talk.
In 1966 she met Henri Cartier-Bresson, acknowledged by many to
be the greatest photographer
of the 20th Century and father of modern photojournalism. They
married in 1971. Henri was
both critical and inspirational as well as warmly supportive of
me as a photographer. She
was nevertheless resolute in refusing to pro t professionally
from her marriage, cancelling
her rst solo exhibition at Londons ICA when she learned that the
invitation talked of Cartier-
Bressons presence at the private view.
In 1970 Franck joined Vu, the Paris photographic agency which
broke up within a year of her
arrival. She then went on to co-create a new agency Viva, in
1972: We had the same kind
of ethos as at Magnum, except that we all lived in Paris and all
did the same type of black
and white photography.
Viva also collapsed and it was not until 1980 that Franck joined
Magnum, the celebratedagency which Cartier-Bresson had helped to
found. She was one of the few women to
be accepted Magnum and served as vice-president from 1998 to
2000. Eschewing the
war/human tragedy reportage that characterised Magnums
reputation, she continued her
projects on marginal or isolated lives.
Franck understood the need for strong composition, linking form
and content. She would
solve compositional problems on the spot, never improving an
image by cropping in the
darkroom. What I like about photography is precisely the moment
that cannot be anticipated.
One must be constantly on the alert, ready to claim the
unexpected.
GALLERY
7/28/2019 Northern Survey by Martine Franck/Cartier-Bresson
exhibition text
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In the summer of 1978, Side Gallery commissioned Martine Franck
to photograph in the
North of England and the borders. The photographs in this
exhibition are her own selection
from the work she made at that time.
During this period, her husband Cartier-Bresson was also
exhibiting work at Side Galleryand would accompany her on the
commission outings. Although they never worked together
on the project, this exhibition does include photographs that he
took during that time along
with snippets of correspondence between both photographers and
gallery staff, allowing
a small insight into the relationships involved, the friendships
made and the procedure of
making the work.
Martine Franck died in August this year at the age of 74. Side
Gallery has programmed this
exhibition from its archive in memory of a great photographer
and a fruitful residency.
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