After four years traveling around the world sponsored by the Lumière brothers as a Cinematographic operator (1896-1900), Gabriel Veyre (1971-1936) arrives in Morocco in 1901 to teach photography to the sultan Moulay Abd El Aziz. He reveals to his royal student the mysteries of the camera obscura but also the magic of the autochrome, the first color photographic process, commercialized by the Lumière brothers in 1907, of which he became a passionate ambassador. The following year, the abdication of Moulay Abd El Aziz put an end to his mission. However, Gabriel Veyre decides to stay in Morocco and settles in Casablanca. With an ingenious spirit, he begins a series of businesses: he sets up factories (flour, ice cream factory, sawmill, a brickyard), he imports the first Ford vehicules, starts a radio station, breeds ostrichs and astrakans sheep, etc. All these activities drive him away from his passion for photography. But in 1934 he returns with radiance.
He begins a trip through Morocco. In his Ford, he gathers his chambers, autochrome plates, a camera and 16mm film. Casablanca, Tangiers, Meknès, Fez, Atlas, Marrakech… With the subtle colors from the autochrome, he immortalizes hundreds of landscapes and films many everyday life scenes. Premonition, tribute to his adoptive country, photographic testament? Gabriel Veyre finishes his feature in 1953 and dies shortly after in Casablanca.
An autochrome virtuoso, Gabriel Veyre depicted a unique portrait of 20th century Morocco. A poetic and legendary country, Morocco is vibrant with luminosity as though a colorful dream. But his view on people is not less alive. The faces of Moroccans, taken in the streets of Fez, of Marrakech, offer to Veyre’s camera a view filled with life. In these images we feel a deep sense of egality between the subjects and the photographer.
Gabriel Veyre, un rêve de couleurs
les autochromes du Maroc
July: 1-31
August: 15-28
La Chambre
4 place d’Austerlitz
67000 Strasbourg
Wednesday-Sunday, 2-7pm
Presented by:
Lumière des Roses / Marion & Philippe Jacquier
Photographies 19e et 20e siècles
12-14 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau
93100 Montreuil
France
Tel 01 48 70 02 02 – mob 06 11 49 52 27
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