Japanese photography, the little-known collection of the BNF

Paris. “It was by designing the exhibition “Black and white: an aesthetic of photography” [2023-2024] that the idea of ​​devoting an exhibition to Japanese photographs from the Bibliothèque nationale de France [BNF] emerged from the collection, rich in more than 4,000 prints from nearly 200 photographers”underlines Dominique Versavel, co-curator with Héloïse Conésa of “Japanese Photographs”, an exhibition covering eighty years of creations, from 1945 to 2025. “This ensemble, one of the most important in the West, is also among the pioneers due to the early interest of the Estampes cabinet [de la BNF] for Japanese graphic arts. »

In 250 prints and around fifty works characteristic of Japanese editorial production, the two chief curators in the Department of Prints and Photography reveal a collection of unsuspected richness. The exhibition implicitly narrates its history since the donation of prints, in 1957 and 1958, from the French Photography Society and the creation of the basis of this collection at the end of the 1960s by Jean-Claude Lemagny (1931-2023), first curator responsible for contemporary photography (1968-1997).

“Jean-Claude Lemagny set up a network of photographers and forged links at a time when Japanese photography, vibrant locally, is still little known in the West. What we show is the fruit of his choices and those of the conservatives who have succeeded him since.” recalls Héloïse Conésa.

The BNF exhibition does not intend to offer a history of Japanese photography. It highlights the main thematic and aesthetic axes of the collection in six sections, from post-war reportage photography to that reflecting his approach to nature, the cosmos or the body through minimalism, shadow, the materiality of the image, the dilution of the motif. At the heart of the route, the “Hello Paris!” section. »dedicated to works produced by photographers who have stayed or lived in the French capital, recount the specific relationships established with the BNF, alongside a focus on authors such as Eikoh Hosoe (1933-2024).

Movements to discover

Black and white dominates, counterbalanced by the acquisitions of color photographs carried out between 2019 and 2025 for the exhibition. Purchases which concern both authors already in the BNF collection such as Shigeo Gocho, Hiromi Tsuchida and Yutaka Takanashi as well as photographers making their debut such as Eriko Koga, Rinko Kawauchi and Yu Hirai, “three women photographers for whom color is crucial”, notes Dominique Versavel.

Alongside photographers who have passed into posterity such as Daido Moriyama, Shoji Ueda, Shomei Tomatsu and Eikoh Hosoe, a multitude of names, styles, and little-known movements are discovered such as Konpora Shashin (“contemporary photography”) and one of its emblematic representatives, Shigeo Gocho. The latter is less known in France than Masahisa Fukase, representative of a movement which, based on the everyday and the intimate, produced in the 1960s and 1980s delicate images of Japanese society or the animal world, sometimes with a marvelous strangeness, contrasting with those radical, raw, fuzzy and grainy images of the Japanese magazine. Provoke.

In this in-depth understanding of the Japanese scene, the collaboration of Yoshiaki Kai, professor of history of photography at the University of Niigata and specialist in the Konpora Sashin movement, was precious, and the donations from photographers, already generous in the past, particularly numerous. The BNF estimates that almost 44% of prints entered through this method of acquisition.

Through this look at Japanese photography, links are made between generations and the prints on the walls interact from one section to another with the windows of books and magazines renowned for their editorial quality. “Until the 1970s, [ces derniers] were the purpose of a work and the preferred media for its dissemination. The desire of MoMA and the BN to have quality prints to preserve them over time has encouraged photographers to place value on their prints, which will become a reference. underlines Héloïse Conésa.

From one end of the journey to the other, the anthology of sublime prints contributes to the pleasure of reading, as does the fluidity and depth of the story impeccably staged by Maud Martinot, associated for graphic design at the Balam studio and for lighting design at Aura Studio. Maud Martinot is not her first collaboration with the BNF. For “Japanese Photographs”, “the scenography is based on an aesthetic of darkness, where light guides the journey, she explains. In the center, the large backlit Drop Paper® walls evoke Japanese shoji and play on the translucency and mystery of the images, revealing the grain. A warm light radiates from this central heart and extends into the treatment of the windows. The periphery, deliberately darkened, contrasts with a few picture rails punctuated with warm shades. The poplar in the windows provides additional softness.”