Agnès Sire, the artist director of Fondation Henri-Cartier Bresson, worked with Martine Franck before the photographer’s death in 2012 to select the images for a retrospective at the Paris foundation’s new home in Le Marais. ‘I don’t think she ever thought that we would open the new foundation with her work, she was very modest,’ says Sire.
The survey gives a taste of the many strands of photography that Franck pursued during her career, including documentary reportage, portraiture, landscapes and travel. Contained within the archives at the foundation, her work – along with that of her husband Henri Cartier-Bresson – is now available to scholars, researchers and visitors in a magnificent building restored by Novo Architects.
Born in Antwerp, Franck grew up in the US and England, later studying art history at the University of Madrid and École du Louvre in Paris. Photography began by chance after her cousin lent her his Leica to take with her on her extensive journeys through Asia. Upon her return to Paris in 1964, she became a photographic assistant at Time-Life and her career took off. She was a founding member of Viva agency and later joined Magnum Photos – one of the few women to be accepted in the agency.
Le pèlerinage de San Isidro, Musée du Prado, Madrid, 1993, by Martine Franck.
Describing her relationship with photography, Franck once mused: ‘I feel concerned at what is happening in the world, and involved in what surrounds me, I do not wish merely to “document”. I want to know why a certain thing bothers me or attracts me, and how a situation can affect the person involved. I am not looking to create a situation and I never work in a studio. Instead, I try to understand, to grasp reality. In photography, I have found a language that suits me.’
Franck was not only deeply curious about the many aspects of humanity, but also expert at finding new dimensions in the tension between figuration and abstraction, light and shadow. Her work is subtle, informed and immaculate. A master of composition, she delighted in achieving layers of depth in her shots, using naturally occurring patterns in the background that lead the eye through the image to one or several focal points.
As we discuss Franck’s work in the new exhibition space at 79 rue des Archives, foundation director François Hébel describes Franck as an almost accidental photographer who simply used a camera to follow her curiosity and find her voice. I can’t help but suspect that this comment, rather like the photographer, is charmingly understated.
Martine Franck photographiée par Henri Cartier-Bresson, Venise, Italie, 1972, by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Ballymun, quartier nord de Dublin, Irlande, 1993, by Martine Franck.
Foyer de l’Armée du Salut, New York, 1979, by Martine Franck.
Tory Island, Comté de Donegal, Irlande, 1995, by Martine Franck.
Quartier de Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, Royaume-Uni, 1977, by Martine Franck.
INFORMATION
‘Martine Franck – A Retrospective’ is on view until 6 February 2019. The exhibition will be shown at the Musée d l’Elysée in Lausanne between 20 February – 5 May 2019, and at the FotoMuseum in Antwerp between 28 June – 6 October 2019. For more information, visit the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson website
ADDRESS
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson
79 rue des Archives
75003 Paris
-
Flat-out brilliance: three Dutch houses that celebrate the horizontalThese three Dutch houses, built between the 1980s and the 2020s, blend seamlessly into the flat landscapes of the low country
-
What are biomaterials? Everything you need to know about Mother Nature's building blocksCould the cities of the future be grown from plants, bacteria and fungi? Architects explain
-
‘Never copy the past’: how Nicolas Di Felice is taking Courrèges into the futureAt Courrèges, artistic director Nicolas Di Felice is marrying radical thinking, raving and reinterpreted minimalist codes to give the French fashion house a new dynamism. Hannah Tindle heads to Paris to meet the designer
-
Yulia Mahr digs beneath the skin in her modern update of classic Greek statues in ParisIn 'The Church of Our Becoming', on view at the Courtyard at Dover Street Market Paris, Yulia Mahr celebrates real human bodies
-
Jean-Michel Othoniel takes over Avignon for his biggest ever exhibitionOriginally approached by Avignon to mark their 25th anniversary as the European Capital of Culture, Jean-Michel Othoniel more than rose to the challenge, installing 270 artworks around the city
-
Joel Quayson’s winning work for Dior Beauty at Arles considers the theme ‘Face-to-Face’ – watch it hereQuayson, who has won the 2025 Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents at Arles, imbues his winning work with a raw intimacy
-
What to see at Rencontres d’Arles 2025, questioning power structures in the state and familySuppressed memories resurface in sharply considered photography at Rencontres d'Arles 2025. Here are some standout photographers to see
-
‘With a small gesture of buying a postcard, we all become copyists’: the Louvre’s celebration of copying speaks to human natureContemporary artists are invited to copy works from the Louvre in a celebration of the copyist’s art, a collaboration with Centre Pompidou-Metz
-
Wolfgang Tillmans brings a performative edge to bibliophilia at the Centre Pompidou’s libraryAs the Centre Pompidou’s library is emptied ahead of the venue’s five-year restoration, the German photographer moves in for a final fling of a Paris exhibition
-
A song for the dead – Josh Homme on performing for six million souls in the bowels of the Paris CatacombsA rock band, a brush with death and an underground tomb coalesce in haunting new Queens of the Stone Age film, ‘Alive in the Catacombs’. Wallpaper* meets frontman Josh Homme and director Thomas Rames
-
The glory years of the Cannes Film Festival are captured in a new photo book‘Cannes’ by Derek Ridgers looks back on the photographer's time at the Cannes Film Festival between 1984 and 1996
