Léon Herschtritt was born in Paris in 1936. With war looming, the family was briefly detained at the Drancy camp during the Occupation. His father asserted his British nationality and the family was saved. After the liberation, the young Parisian discovered photography by borrowing his father’s camera. The teenager tried his hand at photography, using his friends for models along the banks of the Seine.
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Thanks to Emile Savitry, a humanist photographer and friend of the family, the young man met Jacques Prévert. He recounted: “At Savitry’s house, there was sausage, bread, and red wine. Above all, there were people like Brassaï and the Prévert brothers. It was wonderful! I was 18 and meeting celebrities!” L. H.
A friendship developed, and Herschtritt was invited to Sunday lunches: “Every Sunday, Prévert welcomed young people: guitarists, photographers, or simply strangers he had met by chance. He used his fame to encourage them. He invited us to his terrace at the Moulin Rouge. We met new people, it was exceptional and fun.” L. H.
Léon quickly decided to turn his passion into a future career and attended the French Institute of Photography, while continuing to explore the city and photographing its inhabitants.
Member of the “30×40,” the Paris Photography Club
“In France, and even in Paris in the 1950s, no museum or gallery was interested in photography. When I was young, we would meet in unusual places such as movie theater lobbies or subway corridors to share our passion. Then the 30×40 club was created [in 1951 by Roger Doloy, also known as the Paris Photography Club] and we would meet every Thursday in the salons of the Club Alpin on Rue de la Boétie. From Cartier-Bresson to Álvarez Bravo, the greatest photographers passed through the doors. I learned my craft thanks to this club. Man Ray was there in front of us and we criticized his photos. It was a wonderful place. At one point, Nicole and I even hosted meetings for this club.” L. H.
Algeria, “Les Gosses,” General de Gaulle, and the Niépce Prize
1958, came military service time. Léon Herschtritt was sent to Algeria for two years, seconded to the Ministry of Education to train Algerians… in photography! There were few students, and Léon spent most of his days in the Casbah, far from the hustle and bustle, capturing scenes of everyday life: mothers and children, kids playing, fig sellers… When General de Gaulle came to visit, he had a front-row seat to cover the famous speech of June 4, 1958.
Charles de Gaulle occupies a prominent place in Léon Herschtritt’s work. General Henry de Medlege* recalls: “In the shadow of the man of June 18, Léon Herschtritt was able to capture, from 1958 to 1970, another facet of the political figure: an official but also intimate facet.”
The stay in Algeria was all the more memorable because it was there that Léon met Nicole, his future wife, companion, confidante, and partner for life.
Back in Paris, boxes of prints under his arm, he set out on a tour of editorial offices. The reception was enthusiastic, his images “touching” and thought-provoking. The monthly magazine Réalité published a six-page feature entitled “Les Gosses d’Algérie” (The kids of Algeria), a great showcase for the young photographer. The weekly magazine France-Observateur followed suit.
Hervé Le Goff* commented, “France-Observateur found in these images of children a welcome alternative to the grim news of attacks and ambushes (…) and did not hesitate to feature young faces that represented hope for the future and peace on its cover.”
Léon Herschtritt’s humanistic sensibility and compassion were revealed.
Pierre Gassmann, founder of the Pictorial Service laboratory, also spotted the prints of Les Gosses d’Algérie, processed by Georges Fèvre one of his printer, and submitted them to the Prix Niépce in 1960. Léon Herschtritt won the award at the age of 24, becoming the youngest winner since the prize was created in 1955, a record that still stands today.
On the strength of this, he was hired as photojournalist for France-Observateur, La Vie catholique illustrée, and Réalités. The experience was short-lived, however, and he quickly regained his independence, becoming the Paris correspondent for the London-based agency Camera Press.
Christmas in Berlin, a symbol in images of the human drama of the Cold War.
December 1961, in the midst of the Cold War during a harsh winter, Berlin was in shock. The city was inexorably divided. The wall that had been erected four months earlier physically separated families, friends, and colleagues. In some places, between the barbed wire and beyond the wall, it was still possible to communicate, look, see, and wave to each other.
So, “What could possibly motivate a young press photographer to drive across Germany in the middle of winter, to drive a Dauphine car, to do a report that no newspaper or agency had commissioned?” asks Hervé Le Goff*.
“I went to see this wall out of curiosity. Apart from the Great Wall of China, it was the first wall that existed […] I was very impressed. First of all, because the atmosphere was horrible: you could see the ‘vopos’ [Volkspolizei, people’s police] watching from the wall… And the atmosphere was also strange, with the snow and the silence. ” L. H.
During his investigations, Léon met a German colleague from Stern magazine. In order to photograph a snowman, the two men moved close, very close to the wall and realized—too late—that the border was not the wall, but a white line… in the snow! The “Vopos” appeared and arrested them. Thanks to his press card, Léon Herschtritt and his companion were released a few hours later. The incident caused some diplomatic turmoil and Le Monde reported in its columns, “Two photographers kidnapped.”
Of the ten days spent in Berlin, Léon confided: “The cold was so intense that it freezed the shutter of my Leica. The Dauphine served as our refuge. We would go out for 15 to 20 minutes, then come back to warm up in the car. There was also a bottle of cognac… But Berlin was so photogenic at that time that the cold didn’t matter. ”
One of the iconic images of Herschtritt’s humanistic eye in this reportage shows a couple perched on the roof of a car covered with snow. The figures are seen from behind, with snow covering the ground around them, both raising their arms to wave to loved ones who have remained on the other side of the wall…
Dynamic photography from the 1960s and 1970s!
In 1963, the Ministry of Cooperation organized a mission to build a large photo library dedicated to the former French colonies in Africa. Léon Herschtritt won the contract and embarked on a three-month trip. He was given generous financial and material resources. He traveled through Chad, Congo, Gabon, the Central African Republic, and Cameroon, traveling by helicopter and 4 wheels drive. Upon his return, he submitted thousands of images to the Ministry. This was followed by an exhibition first at the Musée de l’Homme at the Trocadéro, then in France and abroad. Léon Herschtritt pointed out in an interview: “An exhibition that cost millions and whose photographs mysteriously disappeared…” ”
The following decades were prolific: press publications in some fifty countries, personal work, reports (politics, reunification of Jerusalem, 24 Hours of Le Mans), advertising campaigns, set photography, television production with “La tête de l’homme” (The Head of Man).
Always on the lookout: lovers, gypsies, prostitutes, students and workers in May 1968, portraits: Georges Simenon, Romain Gary, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marguerite Duras, Serge Gainsbourg, Catherine Deneuve, Charles de Gaulle, Jacques Chirac, Salvador Dalí, Sonia Delaunay, Geneviève Claisse, Victor Vasarely, Nicolas Schöffer, Émile Gilioli, Rudolf Nureyev, Claude Berri…
In 1966, Herschtritt won the Gens d’images prize for the layout of his book Au hasard des femmes. That same year, Albert Plecy and Maurice Tournier’s television program Chambre noire was dedicated to him.
Then came La célébration des putains (The Celebration of the Whores) on prostitution. The photographer’s gaze, in contrast to voyeurism, shows women in their natural environment, through a prism of sensitivity, vulnerability, intimacy, and dignity. 1974: publication of a portfolio on the theme of couples.
With the arrival of color, and its constraints, but also the demands and competition of the industry, Léon Herschtritt felt he had come full circle in his first life and decided to embark on a new adventure…
The Montmartre bistro, or the “Café des photographes”
And so, in the mid-1970s, Léon and Nicole opened a Parisian bistro in the district for antiques of Drouot.
It was a unique and welcoming place where herring and apples in oil and Beaujolais wine were served alongside art exhibitions and animated slide shows, in a setting decorated with photographs and old objects. The establishment quickly became a must-visit spot for artists and photographers of all ages, both French and foreign, such as Jeanloup Sieff and André Villers, Léon’s close friends, and Helmut Newton. For four years, the couple welcomed, entertained, and treated their guests, while also frequenting flea markets, Drouot, and Bièvres… Another passion soon emerged, leading to a new activity: collector, dealer, and expert…
Antique dealer at the Saint-Ouen flea market and gallery owner in Saint-Germain-des-Prés
In the 1970s and 1980s, few would have bet on the future “artistic value” and, by extension, “recognition on the art market” of a collection of photographs. Until then, the value of a photograph was determined by its appearance in the press and in glossy magazines.
However, during this period, photography began to subtly shift towards the world of “listed” art, and the Herschritts contributed greatly to this change.
Embarking on a new career as antique dealers in 1976, they combined their collection with items for sale. They opened their first stall at the Vernaison Flea Market in Clignancourt.
The collection grew to include the great names of 19th-century historical photography: Alphonse Giroux, Edouard Baldus, Auguste Salzmann, Maxime du Camp, Jean-Jacques Heilmann, Farnham Maxwell-Lyte, John Stewart, Louis Désir Blanquart-Évrard, Vallou de Villeneuve, Adolphe Braun, Jean-Baptiste Frénet, Franck Chauvassaigne, and others. In 1996, the book Jamais deux fois le même regard (Never twice the same look) was published on his private collection.
Then a new space opened, this time at the Marché Paul Bert. With his son Laurent, Léon opened a gallery in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1998 dedicated to 20th-century artists. These were “humanists,” most of whom were his friends: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edouard Boubat, Sabine Weiss, Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Izis, Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, and others. And the great names of the 20th century: Man Ray, Maurice Tabard, Gisèle Freund, Brassaï, André Kertész, Emmanuel Sougez, Ergy Landau, William Klein, Lucien Hervé, Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keita, Mario Giacomelli, André Villers, Benoît Gysembergh…
Finally, the Nicole and Léon Herschtritt Gallery on Rue Jacques Callot on the Left Bank was still active in the 2000s, with an expertise section and the first photojournalism auctions at Drouot.
In 2006, Léon Herschtritt was invited by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France to reopen his boxes of prints from the 1960s and 1970s for the exhibition “La Photographie humaniste 1945-1968” (Humanist Photography 1945-1968). On this occasion, the B.N.F. acquired forty of his photographs. From then on, exhibitions, publications, retrospectives, and carte blanche followed one after another in France, Germany, and the United States. His collection was given new exposure and his images were reprinted, notably by Philippe Salaün and Pierre Gassmann.
His series “Christmas in Berlin 1961” was widely exhibited, his vision of a humanistic Africa rubbed shoulders with those of Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keita, and J. D. His prints “Paris in the 1960s” are on display at the Foosaner Art Museum in Florida, and recently, the exhibition “Léon Herschtritt, Photographer of the Gaullist Years” was dedicated to him at the Musée de l’Armée, with the inclusion of part of his collection and the publication of the book “Jamais deux fois le même regard: Photographies des collections du Musée de l’Armée” (Never Twice the same look): Photographs from the Collections of the Musée de l’Armée).
“Any photographer can take a beautiful photograph one day, but how many will be able to capture an atmosphere, a world, an event, or a person?” L. H.
Léon Herschtritt died in Paris on November 21st, 2020, at the age of 84.
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*Hervé Le Goff is a journalist, essayist, art critic, and author specializing in photography.
*General Henry de Medlege was director of the Musée de l’Armée-Invalides between 2020 and 2024.
Bibliographic sources:
– Léon Herschtritt (1936-2020). Jamais deux fois le même regard : photographies des collections du Musée de l’Armée, Vincent Giraudier, Lucie Moriceau-Chastagner, and Carine Lachèvre, co-published by Odyssée-Musée de l’Armée, 2023, Paris
– Die Mauer, Berlin 1961: Le Mur; The Wall, Léon Herschtritt, Hervé Le Goff, Walter Momper, ed. La collection, 2009
– Web: leonherschtritt.com – Bernard Perrine/Léon Herschtritt/Le style et la fibre/2009/rencontres-arles.com – Interview with Anaïs Viand/actuphoto.com – veroniquechemla.info – wikipedia – lacollection.eu – defense.gouv.fr – cnap.fr
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Léon Herschtritt as seen by Bernard Perrine*
“Léon Herschtritt’s work comes at a pivotal moment, both inheriting and stifling what is known as ‘post-war French humanist photography’.
And the new visions coming from across the Atlantic which, with technological developments, would challenge the very foundations of photography. This is no coincidence, as this work, which was recognized very early on, highlighted what Emmanuel Sougez foresaw in Camera magazine in 1961: “It is no longer the quality of an image that attracts attention, but its subject and meaning. ”
Moving from one theme to another, with humans as his subject, Léon Herschtritt shows us more than just a slice of history: he offers a unique perspective on stories in the sense of narratives. Beyond what used to be called “picture essays” (Berlin Wall, Children of Algeria, or The African Village) or behind the great portraits (de Gaulle, Sartre, or Catherine Deneuve…), we discover the characteristic imprint of a generation, not to say a school. And above all, the unique style of a photographer.
Technological advances in camera equipment and sensitive surfaces, to put it simply, became synonymous with liberation, shattering old constraints. Freed from these constraints, photographers could concentrate on their subjects, capturing their slightest gestures and the subtlest expressions or emotions using only the available light. They could even deliberately choose the lighting of a bistro and the grain of black and white to create a certain atmosphere. To all this, Léon Herschtritt added, in all the subjects he tackled, that “tender gaze” that makes his photographs recognizable among thousands of others. ”
*Bernard Perrine (1938-2023) was a French journalist, teacher, and photographer.
Auction – Paris, November 14, 11 a.m. – Paris Photo
Practical information:
Expert: Christophe Goeury – Department Director: Federica Barolo
Exhibition: Wednesday, November 12, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, November 13, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. – Sale on November 14 at
11 a.m. in room VV, 3 rue Rossini 75009 Paris
