“The world in black and white has a certain mystery that cannot be put into words but is incredibly appealing to the eye. Is it wrong to believe that this strikes a particularly strong chord given that we are living in a time when anything can be photographed in colour?” Shoji Ueda.
This exhibition brings together masterpieces in black and white from the photography collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF), given a rare outing from its archives for the occasion. Nadar, Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Willy Ronis, Helmut Newton, Diane Arbus, Mario Giacomelli, Robert Frank, William Klein, Daido Moriyama and Valérie Belin are among the leading lights of French and international photography brought together in an exhibition that spans 150 years of history in black and white photography, from its 19th-century origins to contemporary creation.