Roland Dufau, Sculptor of Light. An exhibition of Cibachrome photographs in dialogue with Reza. In Venice.
It is the charm of photographic printing that brings out the best in photographs, highlighting what the photographer intended to capture during the shoot. This can be appreciated by visiting the exhibition Roland Dufau, Sculptor of Light. In dialogue with Reza at the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice, where a selection from Dufau’s collection of Cibachrome prints, curated by the photographer Reza, is on display within the rooms of this 17th-century Venetian palace.
During his almost forty-year career, Roland Dufau used the Cibachrome process, developed by Ilford, to print and enhance slides for photographers at his studio in Paris. Following Ilford’s closure, this process is no longer available. Thus, this Mostra fotografica in Cibachrome, as the title states, offers an opportunity to view authorial photographs and prints produced with the utmost care by the printer using a highly regarded process renowned for its aesthetic quality and durability, that has now become “historic”. For Dufau, the slide presented a challenge: to reproduce its colours with absolute precision, making the most of Cibachrome’s characteristics, applying photogravure techniques and creating masks to control the contrasts. Each slide required different technical approaches, in total darkness, with exposure times ranging from five seconds for the light areas to fifteen minutes for the dark ones.
Roland Dufau gained recognition when the Documentation française asked him to produce a 20 x 25 cm print from a slide of the official portrait of President François Mitterrand, taken by Gisèle Freund.
It was only upon delivery that Dufau discovered he was competing with five other laboratories to produce 300 identical prints. Having examined the various versions at his desk, President Mitterrand chose the Cibachrome print by Dufau. Dufau has assembled a unique collection of over a thousand images, notable for both the renown of the photographers and the quality of the prints.
This exhibition marks the Fondation Bru’s ongoing commitment to promoting cultural heritage, primarily through the artistic fields dear to its founder, Nicole Bru: music and photography. During the Venice Biennale Arte, the Fondation Bru invites a photographer (or, as in this case, a printing master) to exhibit their work at the Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française. The Fondation Bru first met Roland Dufau in 2014 through the Fondation Gilles Caron. Following the closure of Ilford in 2013, Dufau had set aside a stock of Cibachrome paper, which he used to produce sixty prints from slides by Gilles Caron. A selection of these works was exhibited in Venice during the 2015 Biennale Arte.
“Christiane & Roland Dufau’s private collection of Cibachrome prints is a visual treasure of our time, built with passion and rigour over 37 years of career,” says Reza, a philanthropist, idealist and humanist who made a commitment in 1979: ‘Photography in the service of humanity’. Since then, he has travelled the world, photographing conflicts, revolutions, joys and sorrows of humanity, publishing in renowned publications and receiving many awards, including the World Press Photo and the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography. After examining all the works in the collection, Reza said that “a single principle guided my ‘blind’ selection: the absolute quality of the print, above any consideration of fame or reputation. It was only afterwards, when I looked at the prints I had selected and discovered who had shot them, that I realised how profoundly coherent this choice was. Each artist in the collection embodies a different aspect of photography: from portraiture to landscape, from reportage to abstraction. And this is where Roland Dufau’s magic lies: thanks to his discerning eye, intuition and mastery, he has brought these images to eternal life. His prints are not just reproductions: they are works of art in their own right”.
In turn, Reza had his Cibachrome prints produced by Roland Dufau, including the iconic portrait of Commander Massoud. In a nod to their close friendship, the photographer dedicated an episode of the Square Artiste series to Dufau.
Paola Sammartano
Roland Dufau, scultore di luce. In dialogo con Reza
From May 23 to September 12, 2026
Palazzetto Bru Zane
San Polo 2368
30125 Venezia, Italia
https://bru-zane.com/
