After a first exhibition tribute to the work of Raymond Cauchetier in 2015, we are happy to present a second exhibition of completely new images, celebrating the 100 years of this unique photographer!
While spending time with Raymond and his wife Kaoru, I had the chance to discover the extraordinary archives of the shoots in which he participated. Because of that trust, I had full access for weeks to another era, through those countless filing cabinets so meticulously filed. The difficulty was to limit oneself in the number of images, as the framing, the light, the scenes photographed were beautiful, pure and luminous!
After having been a reporter during the Indochina War in the 1950s, Raymond Caucheier returned to France and began a career as a still photographer in the summer of 1959 alongside Jean-Luc Godard on the set of the cult “À bout de souffle ”, an emblematic film of the New Wave, this movement of film-loving directors that lasted ten years, from the end of the 1950s to the end of the 1960s.
Raymond thus became the privileged witness of many essential films of this movement: “Jules et Jim”, “Lola”, “Une femme est une femme”, “La Peau Douce”, “Baisers voles”, “La Baie des Anges”… and the accomplice of these young artists, directors and actors whose vitality and freshness were to revolutionize auteur cinema: Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Jeanne Moreau, Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, Françoise Dorléac, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Anouk Aimée… He was able to translate into images this impetus of youth, this spontaneity, dear to the New Wave, and still today the feeling of freedom , the naturalness that emanates from it leaves us dreamy and nostalgic.
François Truffaut said: “the film of tomorrow will be an act of love”, it seems to me that this definition also applies to the photographs of Raymond Cauchetier, without this love they could not have existed.
Julia Gragnon
Joyeux Anniversaire Monsieur Cauchetier !
from September 3 to November 22, 2020
La Galerie de l’Instant
46 rue de Poitou Paris 75003
