To celebrate the bicentenary of the inventor’s first photographic experiments, the Maison Veuve Ambal and the Musée Nicéphore Niépce invite you to explore its collections. Through some forty images, discover the variety, rarity and strangeness of a museum that is unique in the world.
Since its opening in 1974, the ambition of the Musée Nicéphore Niépce has been to explain all aspects of photography: from the earliest works to current uses, in its technical and artistic aspects, as well as in its popular and commercial practices.
Thanks to an influx of donations and an active acquisition policy, its collections now include almost three million photographs and objects! From Nicéphore Niépce’s heliographs to Louis Ducos du Hauron’s first attempts at color (1868), from the daguerreotype to the calotype, from Pictorialism (Robert Demachy) to the New Vision of the 1930s (André Steiner), from street photography to studio photography, the museum covers every field of “photography”.
From the Burgundy region to far-flung lands, we photographically cross the world. We enter Germain Eblé’s studio in Beaune, stroll along the quays of Chalon-sur-Saône, follow Bonfils’ photographic adventures in Gizeh and travel to Japanese villages in Kusakabe Kimbei’s studio. Photography allows us to see beyond what the human eye can perceive (radiography), or to go beyond the boundaries of our planet (lunar photography).
This discovery of photography is also an apprenticeship in techniques. Because photography is not just an art form, it has also been used for military, ethnographic and botanical purposes…
Science has always used this tool to increase knowledge, inventory and disseminate information. Photography is communication, and it’s difficult to talk about it without mentioning the press. Illustrated magazines and journals such as Paris Match and Vu play a vital role in the history of the medium. Everything is important in the history of photography. So too are the intimate images in family albums, vacation or wedding photos. They are essential to understanding our world, and are revealing clues about our society. Photography has never been so present. Thanks to technological advances, we all produce images every day!
It is this infinite richness, these limitless possibilities, all these lives exposed and preserved that the Veuve Ambal wants to celebrate.