While we are familiar with the humanist clichés from the 1930s to the 1960s of a Robert Doisneau or a Willy Ronis, we are less familiar with those of Marcel Bovis. However, the background of this photographer and the quality of his works make him one of the most influential in the history of the photographic medium of the twentieth century.
Marcel Bovis having chosen Antony to spend the end of his life, the Maison des Arts was able to present some photographs of the artist in his exhibition “Regards sur la ville”. Today, in 2021, it pays homage to this great photographer with the monographic exhibition “Marcel Bovis 6 x 6”, co-produced by the Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau de Gentilly and the Mediatheque of Architecture and Heritage.
Marcel Bovis made a donation of his photographic work to the State on January 31, 1991. This donation is kept by the Mediatheque of Architecture and Heritage (MAP); it brings together more than twenty thousand negatives on flexible media and glass plates, eleven thousand prints by the author, as well as a particularly rich collection of archives and prints. This donation was enriched by the bequest of Geneviève Grand, last companion of Bovis, in 2018: more than two thousand prints, graphic works and one thousand five hundred library volumes.
This exhibition is an opportunity to (re) discover so-called humanist photography, in its style and thematic, but also its technical characteristics because humanist photographers like Marcel Bovis have mainly used medium-format square Rolleiflex cameras. Beyond that, it highlights the originality of Marcel Bovis’s point of view compared to his colleagues.
Marcel Bovis : 6 x 6
March 3 – July 4, 2021
Maison des Arts
Parc Bourdeau, 20 rue Velpeau
92160 Antony
