Orange Peel in the Place des Vosges
We met for lunch after our separate Sunday morning activities and lunched in the Place des Vosges before walking the short distance to the Institut suedois where there was a show of work by the Swedish collective Tio Fotgrafer (Ten Photographers), formed by a group of young photographers in 1958 after the model of Magnum as an independent alternative to the Swedish post-war photographic establishment. Later they enlarged the agency and became Nordic Photos.
At first we went in the small hall to the right in the courtyard of the Hotel de Marie. Here there were just a small number of very large prints on the wall along with another in a curious wooden trough on the floor, and the prints seemed rather crude, blown up far too much. If it hadn’t been rather cold and wet outside I might have seen this and given the rest of the show a miss.
It was raining so we took an umbrella…
Fortunately I didn’t do so, as on the other side of the courtyard there was a show with proper photographs from the photographers in the group,
- Sten Didrik Bellander (1921-2001),
- Harry Dittmer (1910-2000),
- Sven Gillsäter (1921-2001),
- Rune Hassner (1928-2003),
- Tore Johnson (1928-80),
- Hans Malmberg (1927-77),
- Pål-Nils Nilsson (1929-2002),
- George Oddner (1923-2007),
- Hans Hammarskiöld (b1925) and
- Lennart Olson (b1925).
The group were very much influenced by finding the work of photographers such as Kertész, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Edouard Boubat (1923-99), and perhaps it shows too much, as although the work of these masters was unknown in Sweden in the 1950s,they are now very familiar to us.
Several of them became friends of Boubat and a panel of his pictures, from the collection of the MEP in Paris, was included in the show.
Four in the top row of these pictures by Hammarskiöld are from London
Several of these Swedish photographers were known to me – three were in the Family of Man and work from others appeared in international shows and publications. I was particularly interested to find a number of pictures of London by Hans Hammarskiöld in the show which has been seen at a number of places around the world, including Moscow.
It was a pleasant show, but one that showed that these were very much photographers of their times, working in a tradition that had already perhaps become rather comfortable over the previous 20 or so years before they founded their collective, and which younger photographers such as Robert Frank were already reacting to. As well as the links above you can find more of some of their work on either the Nordic Photos or Hasselblad sites.
UPDATE:
PARIS PHOTO SUPPLEMENT is now on MY LONDON DIARY
- Wednesday
- Thur am: 9e, 2e & Paris Photo
- In the 3eme
- Brian Griffin – The Black Country
- Jim & Millie’s Party
- Wandering in the 20e
- Lab East at Paris Photo
- To Saint-Germain-des-Prés
- Montmartre at Night
- Street Photography in the 10e
- Guided tour of the Photo-OFF
- Dinner at Chartier
- The Marais
- BnF and FIAP
- Monday Wandering