1073
institution with distinguished members of the other
photographic societies like Doctor Etienne-Jules Marey
(the famous physiologist), Doctor Dujardin-Beaumetz
and Albert Londe (already member of the French pho-
tographic society and the Société d’Excursions des
Amateurs photographes: Excursions Society of the
photographic Amateurs).
As the other guilds, the Photo-Club de Paris gave to
its members the possibility to use a new modeling and
development workshop, a chemistry laboratory dedi-
cated to the tests, a library next to a reading room and
other places to meet every month and to participate to
the projections sessions.
In order to “show to the other photographic societ-
ies that the Photo-Club de Paris take an important part
in the general toil” (“montrer aux autres sociétés qui
s’occupent de photographie la part que le Photo-Club
de Paris prend dans le labeur général,” in Bulletin du
Photo-Club de Paris, 1891, 9), the amateurs’ associa-
tion published between 1891 and 1902, the Bulletin du
Photo-Club de Paris in which members could fi nd a tran-
scription of the photo-club’s life: communications about
techniques as well as artistic considerations, descriptions
of novelties like new cameras or chemistry methods for
development or pictures treatments and summaries of
foreign researches. This publication had to sustain the
debate and to claim the position of the Photo-Club. In
1903, the Bulletin became independent and turned its
name into “La revue de photographie.”
Thereby, the association took a central role in the
diffusion of a new trend considered as the fi rst artistic
photographic movement. Beginning with the book of
Peter Henry Emerson, Naturalistic Photography for
Students of the Art, published in 1889, Pictorialism
opened a new avenue for photographers. The Pictorialists
saw the excursionist’s and the family practices only as
entertainment, whereas they treated their pictures with
particular processes. Using printed techniques such as
gum bichromate or oil transfer, they searched to give to
their photographs drawing effects considered as the best
way to make recognize photography as an art. But soon,
two esthetics appeared, the vaporous one and the detailed
one. A dispute to choose the best one followed.
To distinguish them from the excursionists, members
of the Photo-Club de Paris took part to the international
exhibition of 1892, the “fi rst international exhibition of
photography and related arts” (“Première exposition
internationale de photographie et des arts qui s’y rat-
tachent”), and soon organized the “First exhibition of
photographic art” (“Première exposition internationale
d’art photographique du Photo-Club de Paris) in 1894,
from the 10th of January to the 30th of January, closely
modeled on the French artistic Salon. The academic
painter Léon Gérôme even presided the jury from 1895
to his death in 1904.
The creation of the Photo-Club de Paris was part of
a worldwide movement, along with the Wiener Camera
Club in Vienna, the Linked Ring based in London and
the Camera Club of New York. These associations ac-
celerated the internalization of the photographic institu-
tion, promoted the International Union of Photography,
creating links between societies. The pictorial movement
used their luxurious publications to diffuse their esthet-
ics, works and researches.
In France, members of the Photo-Club de Paris and
the most representative members of Pictorialism were
Léon Robert Demachy (1859–1936) and Emile Constant
Puyo (1857–1933). These charismatic leaders theorized
the esthetic and wrote many articles published in differ-
ent newspapers. They met each other at the Photo-Club
in 1895. Less prominent fi gures included René Le Bègue
and Henri Fourtier.
Very involved in printed technique, Demachy was
one of the fi rst to employ the gum bichromate already
used by Alphonse Poitevin (in France) and John Pouncy
(in Great Britain) in their own research during the
1850s.
He spread his method thanks to several articles and il-
lustrated lectures in Paris, Brussels, and London. He was
also a specialist of the bromoil process. These printed
techniques made photographs look like drawings, gave
them an artistic touch and permitted the interpretation
of reality.
With the public recognition, fi rst during the Exposi-
tion Universelle of 1900 in Paris, came the time of the
suspicion about pictorialism. Some photographers and
critics underlined its lack of creativity and innovation:
the vogue of etheral and vaporous photography vanished
with the birth of the “straight photography.”
However, the Photo-Club de Paris’ position about
the artistic photography remained the same, always
represented by amateurs. With the First World War, the
association became less and less powerful but was still
headed by one man, Constant Puyo (Demachy stopped
his practice during the war) who still approved the same
esthetic. In 1924, it became the responsibility of the
French photographic Society to continue to organize
photographic exhibitions.
The life of the Photo-Club de Paris had always been
bound with the fi rst artistic photographic movement. Its
infl uence disappeared with the death of the pictorialist
approach and the death of Puyo in 1933 marked its last
activities.
Marion PercevalSee also: Demachy, (Léon) Robert; Puyo, Émile
Joachim Constant; Gum Print; Société française de
photographie; Pictorialism; Emerson, Peter Henry;
Brotherhood of the Linked Ring; and Amateur
Photographers, Camera Clubs, and Societies.