Elysée Lausanne Press kit

The collections of the Musée de l’ElyséeDonations and exhibition

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Jan Groover, Sans titre, n.d., © Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

The collections of the Musée de l’Elysée

Table of contents

Donation of the Jan Groover photographic archive 3 Olivier Föllmi donation 5Chinese books donation 7Fabienne Levy donation 7

ExhibitionGertrude Fehr (1895-1996) - A woman photographer at the forefront 8UBS Saint-François Partners and support 9 Practical information 10

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After the archives of Sabine Weiss, the Musée de l’Elysée is happy to announce the donation of the totality of the archives of the American-born photographer Jan Groover (1943-2012). Her work will be featured in a major exhibition in 2019 after the entire collection has been processed. This donationwas made possible thanks to the generous support of the Canton of Vaud through the SERAC.

“These archives have a special value for the Musée de l’Elysée, emphasizes Tatyana Franck, not just because they cover the 40 years of the artist’s career and the evolution of her creative process, but also in relation to the future projects at PLATEFORME 10. By virtue of her subjects and her treatment of them, the Jan Groover archive stands out from the other archives preserved at the museum, which tend to be more focused on documentary or journalistic photography.”

Emblematic figure of the American artistic scene as of the 1970s, Jan Groover built a photographic work that placed her in the forefront of the artists of her day. After her beginnings that were characterized by the influence of conceptual art, she progressively oriented herself toward a studio approach. Although she still occasionally explored other aspects and canonical genres of the medium, she developed an atypical and virtuoso approach in the studio revolving around the codes of still life photography. Far from any documentary aspirations, Groover saw the photographic image as a pictorial composition, a picture where she could play with the spatial structure and her visual perception.

Thanks to the assistance of Bruce Boice, the photographer’s husband, the Musée de l’Elysée is now in possession of Jan Groover’s archives (covering the totality of her period of activity, from 1969 to 2012) in view of preserving and enhancing them and making them available to visitors. Previously kept at the artist’s last residence in Montpon-Ménestérol (France), the Groover archives represent a total of 12,000 phototypes composed of negatives, slides, contact sheets, albums, working and exhibition prints.

Her work is part of the collections of the most prestigious American museums. She had a mid-career retrospective at the MoMA in 1987, as well as solo exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York. Having benefited from a certain visibility since the 1990s, the work of Jan Groover became an essential reference for subsequent generations of photographers. Although her work is often unknown outside of the United States, the aim of the retrospective organized in 2019 at the Musée de l’Elysée, curated by Tatyana Franck and Paul Frèches, is to make her work known to a broad European public.

Jan Groover, Sans titre, n.d. © Musée de l’Elysée, LausanneJan Groover, Sans titre, n.d. © Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

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Biography of Jan Groover (1943-2012)

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey (USA), Jan Groover studied fine arts and visual arts education. At the beginning of the 1970s, Groover abandoned abstract painting to become a self-taught photographer. With this new medium, the artist invented a specific language to create a body of work that would stand the test of time and scrutiny: a visual and esthetic vocabulary that allowed her not only to create a dialogue between different elements within the same composition but, also, to make several groups of images resonate among themselves.

As of 1975, Groover’s work began receiving favorable critical acclaim. The photographer was then working on conceptual series organized into enigmatic ‘polyptychs’, which would later be exhibited in museums like the San Francisco Museum of Modem Art, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. These polyptychs consist of two or three images that frame various public spaces from a given point, in turn interrupted by elements altering the image’s composition. These landscapes were not to be considered as “real” but rather as the formal structuring of photographic space.

A major turning point in the artist’s career occurred in 1977 with the creation of her first still life photographs – a genre continually revisited throughout her life. Eager to question and renew her know-how, she tried her hand at many different photographic forms (always coming back to the leitmotiv of the still life) and processes: silver prints in black and white and in color, as well as platinum prints.

Featured in the most prestigious institutions and art galleries, like the Museum of Modem Art in New York for a retrospective in 1987, it seems to us that the work of Jan Groover takes on a new acuity in view of the recent developments of contemporary photography which are in line with her research on the potential of the photographic space. Her multifaceted approach and her enormous technical mastery reveal a body of work of undeniable historic significance.

Link to a film made in 2017 by the Musée de l’ElyséeJan Groover. An intimate portrait

Jan Groover, Sans titre, 1978 © Musée de l’Elysée Jan Groover, Sans titre, 1981 © Musée de l’Elysée

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The Musée de l’Elysée is honored to announce the donation of 15 Cibachrome prints of the Franco-Swiss photographer Olivier Föllmi. These prints are among the last to be produced at the Dufau Studio. This announcement prefigures the donation of the artist’s entire archive, which will take place after the museum’s move to PLATEFORME 10.

Developed in the1960s near Fribourg, Cibachrome (or Ilfochrome) is a photographic process that makes it possible to obtain prints with vibrant and durable colors thanks to a paper that contains pigments (a dye destruction positive-to-positive photographic process). Unfortunately, this process is currently disappearing following the bankruptcy of the Ilford factory in 2013. “The history of color is still to be written. We have only scratched the surface of its preciousness”, says Roland Dufau, one of the last printers to use the process. The advent of digital technology in the 1990s did nothing to favor the development of the Cibachrome, which still maintains, even today, a special aura for connoisseurs.

Chosen together with Tatyana Franck from among tens of thousands of photographs that make up his archive, the 15 iconic images offered by Olivier Föllmi to the Musée de l’Elysée were printed by Roland Dufau on the last rolls of paper purchased at a premium price at the Ilford factory. These photographs reveal the particular link between the photographer and the Himalayas that he has been exploring for the past 40 years and that he has seen undergo great change. “A vanished process for a vanished world,” sums up the photographer. Indeed, Olivier Föllmi experienced the geopolitical evolution of the planet himself, just like the evolution of photographic techniques and the major shift to digital photography that he adopted in the 2000s. The Cibachrome prints are therefore an apt tribute to the analogue color photography that he practiced for many years.

These 15 large format prints announce the donation of Olivier Föllmi’s entire archive to the museum after it has taken up residence at PLATEFORME 10. The donation is being made through the Olivier Föllmi Association, based in Switzerland. Consisting of some 200,000 slides and all of the editorial work surrounding the photographer’s photo essays, the archive is currently being sorted and documented. It will thus contribute to the museum’s collections, one of the strong points of which is travel photography and reporting, alongside the great names in the genre like Ella Maillart, Nicolas Bouvier, René Burri, Jean Mohr, Sabine Weiss and Luc Chessex. ”Representing an appealing, colorful and easily marketable aspect of travel photography, the work of Olivier Föllmi makes it possible to question the iconography of the Other and the Elsewhere and its evolution, circulation and reception,” says Caroline Recher, collections curator at the Musée de l’Elysée. “It is interesting to observe how the perception of such a practice of “beautiful images” evolves and will continue to evolve with the passage of time”. While defending a humanist, optimistic and luminous vision of existence, Olivier Föllmi is nonetheless deeply rooted in his time and aware of the changes and challenges it is facing.

Olivier Föllmi, Late for prayer, Bouthan, 1992 © Olivier Föllmi, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

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Biography of Olivier Föllmi

“My profession as a photographer allows me to experience and transmit the beauty of this world to testify to a humanity that holds promise and to inspire hope.” Olivier Föllmi

Olivier Föllmi is a travel photographer who developed a special passion for Asia and the Himalayas. He is particularly known for having published a series of seven books with Danielle Föllmi, entitled The Wisdoms of Humanity. These books combine photographs and words of wisdom composed during 10 years of travels throughout the world. An enormous publishing success, these books have been translated into nine languages and published to the tune of 1,600,000 copies. In addition, Olivier Föllmi has published books on Tibet, Ladakh, Zanskar, Myanmar and Iceland, among others. His last book on Mount Kailash, written with Jean-Marie Hullot, has just been published by Editions Hozhoni. He has published dozens of news articles and portfolios in magazines and has given countless conferences about his travels. Olivier Föllmi, a humanist photographer especially interested in Buddhism, places the human being and his environment at the center of his work. A witness to the evolution of photography, he is part of the generation that was privy to an advantageous economic model, particularly thanks to the success of illustrated magazines, whereas it has become increasingly difficult today for photographers to make a living from their work. Considering himself extremely lucky, the photographer has always asked himself: “I take images, but what do I give in return?”. To answer this question, he founded HOPE in 1997, an association that supports educational and humanitarian projects, mainly in the Himalayas and in India, followed by the Olivier Föllmi Association of which he is now the director.

Having reached a point in his career where he is taking a critical look at his past, the photographer is now writing the stories behind some of his photographs, thus anchoring them in a more complex narrative. Moreover, in his beloved Himalayas, the inhabitants are now asking him to give them photography lessons, a befitting way for this generous man to “close the loop”.

Olivier Föllmi, At the Jokhang Temple, Lhassa, Tibet, 1994 © Olivier Föllmi, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

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Chinese book donation

The Musée de l’Elysée is pleased to announce the donation of Chinese books that will be a valuable addition to its library. Within the framework of its move to PLATEFORME 10 and the institution’s outreach towards Asia, the Musée de l’Elysée received a large donation in February 2017 of 150 Chinese photography books by Weixing Zhong of the Chengdu Contemporary Photography Arts Park. This set of books, unique in Europe, will be a prized addition to the 20,000 books in the museum’s library and, in particular, to its Chinese and Japanese photography book collection. Some of the books are signed and contain an original print. They are currently being processed and digitized. The Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris received the same generous donation of Chinese photography books to be added to the 33,000 books in the MEP’s library, thus making up for the lack of publications from China.

Fabienne Levy donation

Swiss collector Fabienne Levy chose to donate seventeen works to the institution, including nine by photographers representative of the contemporary art and photography scene. This donation is devoted to contemporary German creation over the past 20 years, as well as to a generation of digital-savvy photographers using the multiple possibilities offered by digital technology. Loretta Lux, known for her portraits of children extensively reworked post-shoot, can be found alongside Aichen Maier who combines traditional shooting techniques with digital manipulations in his landscape photographs.

We can also find Miklos Gaál, a great fan of depth of field who gives his very real urban views the appearance of a model, and Vibeke Tandberg, who questions the notion of body and identity in mise-en-scènes and serial digital manipulations. For others, the photograph is only a medium among all those that they use for their artistic creations. This is the case of Friedrich Kunath, who is perhaps best known for his colored canvases, of Liliana Porter and her mise-en-scènes of little figurines, as well as Sylvie Fleury, famous for her installations. As for Rhona Bitner, her approach is primarily documentary with her series devoted to the universe of the scenic arts.

Finally, a photographic sculpture of Spencer Tunick, whose photographs of volunteers posing naked in outdoor venues made him famous, will also become part of the museum’s collections. Fabienne Levy’s donation thus allows the Musée de l’Elysée to enhance its collections with works that celebrate curiosity, open-mindedness and contemporary photographic research.

Livres chinois ayant rejoint la bibliothèque du Musée de l’Elysée © Musée de l’ElyséeSylvie Fleury, Noël, 1995 (Biba n° 78 décembre 94) © Sylvie FleurySpencer Tunick, Non-violence, 2014 © Spencer Tunick

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Exhibition at UBS Saint-François Through the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée: Gertrude Fehr (1895-1996), a woman photographer at the forefrontNovember 1st to December 1st, 2017

The photographer Gertrude Fehr, born in Mainz (Germany) in 1885, is part of the first generation of professional women photographers. After an apprenticeship in a Munich studio, she opened her own studio in 1918 where she employed up to six people. In 1933, the political situation forced Gertrude Fuld to leave Germany with her future husband, the Swiss painter Jules Fehr (1890-1971). The couple settled in Paris and opened the Publiphot school in 1934, of which she became the director. The school formed students in the art of advertising photography, of which Publiphot was a pioneer. In Paris, Gertrude Fehr was also close to the New Photography movement. She experimented with different techniques - solarization, the photogram, photomontage, etc. – and exhibited her work alongside the great photographers of her generation such as Laure Albin Guillot, Florence Henri and Man Ray.

At the end of the 1930s, Gertrude and Jules Fehr settled in Switzerland and opened a successful new photography school in Lausanne. The school was transferred to Vevey in 1945 to become part of the Ecole des Arts et Métiers (currently CEPV). Gertrude Fehr can therefore be considered as the founder of the Vevey Photography School. The teaching of color photography that she proposed in 1950 contributed to the school’s reputation in Switzerland as well as abroad. Until 1960, she gave classes in portrait, fashion, advertising and journalistic photography. Monique Jacot, Luc Chessex, Jean-Loup Sieff, Yvan Dalain and Francis Reusser can be counted among her many students.

Upon her death in 1996, Gertrude Fehr bequeathed all of her archives to the Fotostiftung in Winterthur and to the Musée de l’Elysée. The latter includes some 1,500 prints, about one hundred negatives and several archive binders.

The exhibition reveals two aspects of this major collection: on the one hand, the personal work of Gertrude Fehr, the fruit of the different experiments that she carried out throughout her career and that bear witness to her interest in photographic techniques, reflecting the evolution of the medium between the years 1930 and 1980; and on the other hand, a selection of work from the 1930s by students at Publiphot that attest to the quality of the training provided by the photographer at her Parisian school.

The prints on exhibit are reproductions (inkjet prints) made by Laurent Cochet (Lausanne) from the originals conserved in the Musée de l’Elysée’s collections.

Useful information :UBS Hall, Place Saint-François 16, Lausanne open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.

Gertrude Fehr, Sans titre, 1955-1960 (détail) © 2017 ProLiterris, Zurich / Gertrude Fehr / Collections Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

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The Musée de l’Elysée thanks its valued partners in 2017

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Useful Information

Press ConferenceTuesday October 31 at 9.30am

Media contactJulie Maillard +41 (0)21 316 99 27julie.maillard@vd.ch

Address18, avenue de l’ElyséeCH - 1014 LausanneT + 41 21 316 99 11www.elysee.ch

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Opening HoursTuesday-Sunday, 11am–6pmClosed on Mondays (except bank holidays)The museum is open until 8pm on the last Thursday of the month

The Musée de l’Elyséeis an institutionof the Canton of Vaud

Musée de l’Elysée © Reto DurietThe future Musée de l’Elysée and mudac at PLATEFORME 10 © Aires Mateus/PLATEFORME 10