Marie-Laure de Decker: few people know it today, but she was one of the greatest photojournalists of the late 20th century.
The MEP pays tribute to this astonishing woman, with her irresistible charm, refusing all constraints, she had unexpected lovers, and crazy photographic adventures, until September 28.
Jean-Jacques Naudet
Simon Baker, director of the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, wrote the presentation.
A few years ago, Pablo Saavedra de Decker approached the MEP to discuss his mother’s work. He initially sought advice on how to manage a vast and valuable archive of prints, negatives, and films. During her lifetime, Marie-Laure de Decker achieved notable critical and commercial success as a photojournalist and portraitist—notably with the Gamma agency—and had even had a solo exhibition at the MEP in 2001. The MEP team, myself included, welcomed Pablo’s approach with enthusiasm and sensitivity, aware both of Marie-Laure’s fragile health and of the undeniable heritage importance of her work for photography in France. Curator Victoria Aresheva traveled to the south of France to meet Pablo and Marie-Laure, during what would become the first and only meeting about a possible collaboration before the photographer’s death. There was no doubt at the time that this was material for a major exhibition, capable of capturing the full breadth of Decker’s practice. But it was truly through the exploration of the archives, led by Victoria Aresheva with Pablo Saavedra de Decker, that the project began to take shape. The 2001 exhibition belonged to a different context, to a different era: it had been presented alongside the great British photographer Sir Don McCullin, at a time when recognition of the role of women photographers had not yet reached its full potential. What this new exhibition, built from a large number of previously unseen documents from the family archives and enriched with photographs from the MEP collections, reveals is a Marie-Laure de Decker we have neither seen nor imagined before—as much through her unique photographic practice, widely recognized by her peers, as through a passionate, determined, and committed life. This project is an opportunity to revisit the stories Decker photographed, as well as her perspective on them, in order not only to affirm her place in French cultural history, but also to highlight her international importance.
Simon Baker
The exhibition catalog is published by Editions de La Martiniere
