This exhibition brings together "black and white" masterpieces from the photographic collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Nadar, Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Willy Ronis, Helmut Newton, Diane Arbus, Mario Giacomelli, Robert Frank, William Klein, Daido Moriyama, Valérie Belin...: the great names of French and international photography are brought together in an exhibition of some 300 prints, spanning 150 years of the history of black & white photography, from its origins in the 19th century to contemporary creation.
"Black & White" is inseparable from the history of photography: its evolution, from the end of the 19th century to the present day, has revealed its plastic power. As the use of color intensified from the 1970s onwards, black and white reinvented itself as a means of aesthetic expression, emphasizing graphics and materials. Black-and-white photography remains less expensive and simpler, but its persistence to this day can be explained above all by the fact that it has come to embody the very essence of photography. It is seen as conveying a universal, timeless and even memorial dimension, whereas color is seen as a translation of the contemporary world.
