Sabine Weiss

Born in Switzerland in 1925. Lives and works in Paris, France

Presentation

Sabine Weiss's work has continued to grow and expand since 1942. She takes on all genres without privileging any. Of course, children are one of her favorite subjects to photograph, but there are many more. She never places more importance on the anecdotal than on sensations themselves, "ones that capture the expression of feelings". She does not recoil at the label "humanist photographer", but she does believe that it is too narrow for her work. The only thing that has sparked her interest and nourished her throughout the years is painting. Unclassifiable and fiercely independent, Sabine Weiss is a fascinating subject.

Biography

Public collections

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France

Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris, France

Musée National d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou

Fondation Nationale des Arts Plastiques, Paris, France

Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France

Musée Nicéphore Nipece, Châlon sur Saône, France

Photothèque des Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France

Galerie du Château d?Eau, Toulouse, France

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

Museum Folkwang, Essen, Allemagne

Musée d?Art Moderne, San Francisco, Californie, USA

Lehigh University Art Gallery, Pittsburg, USA

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japon

Musée de l ?Élysée, Lausanne, Suisse

Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France

LAC, Saint Pierre de la Réunion

Kunsthaus, Zurich, Suisse

Reader?s Digest Collection

Musée « The Family of Man » de Steichen, Luxembourg

« la collection Transphotographique » Pozman

Press

Texts

Sabine Weiss is not a photographer.

In any case, Sabine Weiss is not a photographer whom we can easily class among French humanist photographers and then wash our hands, as if everything were said and done. And this is in no way a criticism of said school of photography. It's merely an observation, a statement of affairs, a report. Even when many of her Parisian photographs seem to belong wholeheartedly to that movement. And that is precisely the key: the mistake is seeing Sabine Weiss as a photographer of Paris. Or exclusively so. Weiss is never more herself than when she leaves France. Never more herself than when she lands in New York, Sicily, Portugal, Egypt. All right, in France she can be considered a photographer. But once we've crossed the national borders by even a few inches, it's a completely different story...

But then, if Sabine Weiss is not a photographer, what is she? Who is she?

Far from her roots, she becomes a director, a maker of films. In fact, I'd much prefer the term maker because her photos are precisely not directed or set up. They are not posed. Not even freeze frames. No, her photos are the beginning of a story. Or the middle. Or the end. And they are often a whole film. You enter one of her photographs as you would enter a cinema. You'll have to buy a ticket to see her photos. In fact, the best way to appreciate them is with others, in a dark room, feeling your neighbours reacting and vibrating at the sight of each of these moments that are at once dense and dramatic.

The first thing that comes to mind when watching the cinema of Sabine Weiss is Italian neo-realism: the Rossellini of Rome, Open City and de Sica's The Bicyle Thief. But after some consideration, I would lean more towards Jules Dassin, who was indeed the first to place his camera on the streets of New York in The Naked City. But for the quality of her black and white works, I most definitely associate Weiss's New York photos with that other film of Dassin's, namely Night and the City. Feel the intensity! And the light! Drama in its purest form. It's no surprise that Weiss also shot her pictures in New York in the thick of the 1950s.

Yes, I firmly believe that this is how we ought to reread Sabine Weiss's photographs now, as great moments of cinema. And in that regard, she is entirely alone in the history of French photography. Or for that matter in the history of photography, full stop. Her place is utterly unique.

Yes, Sabine Weiss is a great photographer.

Olivier Beer

Scriptwriter

News

Prix Women in Motion 2020

November 6, 2020

Une vie de photographe

June 18 - September 6 2020

Vincennes Images Festival

May 25, 2019

La vie

May 7 - July 4 2019

Lost, loose and love : foreign artists in Paris 1944 - 1968

November 21, 2018 - April 22 2019

Les villes, la rue, l'autre

November 9, 2018

Correspondances

November 9, 2018 - January 19 2019

Les voyages de Sabine Weiss

November 8, 2018 - January 12 2019

Les villes, la rue, l'autre

October 10, 2018

Les villes, la rue, l'autre

September 25, 2018

Les villes, la rue, l'autre

June 20 - October 15 2018

Sabine Weiss : une vie de photographies

June 15 - August 19 2018

Femmes et enfants d'abord

2 - 24 June 2018

Towards the Light

March 8 - June 30 2018

3 places, 3 exhibitions

February 3 - April 15 2018

Vagabondages

November 11, 2017 - February 10 2018

Un regard personnel

October 7, 2017 - January 26 2018

En Passant

June 17 - July 29 2017

Sabine Weiss: intimate memory

February 10 - April 29 2017