inscribed—yet distanced—from society and its
principal institutions of power. In the foreground,
a young woman confesses to a priest at a makeshift
confessional, while a crowd of church followers
gathers in the field behind her. Despite the bucolic
setting, the composition has a palpable tension as
the collective power of the Catholic church seen on
either side of the woman contrasts sharply with her
deeply personal reflection.
Riboud embarked on international assignments
in 1955 and made his first visit to China in 1957 at a
time when the country generally was closed to Wes-
terners. While he only occasionally has worked in
France since, China has remained an inexhaustible
source of interest. His earlier China photographs,
likeBeijing, 1965 [antiques dealer], capture a coun-
try still caught between communism and the rem-
nants of dynastic tradition. Here, storefront
windows divide the street life outside into a neat
triptych of past, present, and future: three elderly
jade merchants lounge on the stoop of their shop at
center, while two women with children converse at
left, and a teenage girl in a Mao-style school jacket
turns warily to the camera from the right.Beijing,
1965 [divorce proceeding]has a similar symmetry,
although here it is a government tribunal coming
between a private couple to pass public judgment
under the gaze of Mao’s official portrait. Much of
Riboud’s work in the last decades of the century in
China captures the awkward balance between com-
munism and emerging capitalism, contrasting coal
miners and heavy industry with consumer culture
and advertising. In an uncanny turn inShanghai,
1993 [shopping street], Mao’s official portrait ap-
pears yet again, but this time in a busy shopping
street where he shares wall space with a glamour
shot of American icon Elvis Presley, each being the
airbrushed icon of aging cults.
Through much of the 1960s and ‘70s, Riboud
covered armed conflict and social revolt, from the
wars in Algeria and Vietnam to the student upris-
ings in Paris and the Islamic revolution in Iran.
Avoiding sensationalist depictions of violence, his
work from the period often focuses on the resis-
tance and actions of the general population as a
consequence of such events. In that vein,Washing-
ton, 1967 [girl with flower]became an emblematic
image of the American peace movement, depicting
a young woman at an anti-war demonstration as
she lifts a white daisy to the thrust bayonets of a line
of soldiers. The diffuse light and long focal length
imbue the event with a tender, romantic feeling that
belies its action. His relationship with China earned
Riboud a coveted press visa to North Vietnam in
1968, and his subsequent photographs of Ho Chi
Minh circulated worldwide as proof the Vietnamese
leader was still alive.
While Riboud’s work often has an immediate,
almost snapshot quality that lends it a sense of
transparent testimony, he also has made images of
a more abstract and timeless quality. The silhou-
ettes of two boys playing at dusk inGhana, 1961
[the beach in Accra], for example, merge into a
choreographed figure against a setting that offers
little indication of place or date. Since he left Mag-
num for freelance work in 1979, Riboud has
expanded his range to include work of a more pic-
turesque and spiritual tone, including a series on the
Angkor temples of Cambodia and another on the
Huang Shan mountains of China. Published in
Capital of Heaven, his Huang Shan photographs
use color instead of his customary black and white
to produce misty blue-gray images of rounded
peaks that recall the ghostly landscapes of classical
Chinese scroll paintings.
In addition to his photography, Riboud played a
central role in Magnum’s management and devel-
opment in the 1960s and 1970s, spending 14 years as
its vice president for Europe beginning in 1959, and
serving as president of the agency in 1975. Over-
seeing the agency’s growth while mediating disputes
among its independent-minded members, Riboud
would become an important link between those
who founded the agency in 1947 and the next gen-
eration of members who would see Magnum into
the twenty-first century. He also helped expand the
appeal of photojournalism beyond the confines of
the news media by being among the first photogra-
phers to integrate reporting assignments with gal-
lery and museum exhibitions and, since 1959,
regularly publishing collections of his work. This
practice has promoted the news photograph as an
image of aesthetic consequence potentially trans-
cending the circumstances of its genesis, though it
also has raised the precarious question of the role of
subjectivity in journalistic practice.
StephenMonteiro
Seealso: Capa, Robert; Cartier-Bresson, Henri;
Doisneau, Robert; Life Magazine; Magnum Photos;
Photography in France; ‘‘The Decisive Moment’’Biography
Born in Lyon, France, 24 June 1923. Lives in Paris, France.
Trained as an engineer at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon;
self-educated in photography. Member of Magnum,
Paris, 1953–1979; vice-president of Magnum for Eur-
ope, 1959–1964, 1966–1973; president of Magnum,
1975–1976; chairman of the board, Magnum, 1976–- Appointed Chevalier in the Le ́gion d’honneur;
RIBOUD, MARC