Sabine Weiss is among the most important voices of French humanist photography, together with Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Edouard Boubat, Brassaï and Izis.

Died in 2021 at the age of 97, Weiss was the only post-war female photographer to have practiced this profession for so long and in all fields of photography, from reportage to artist portraits, from fashion to street shots with particular attention to the faces of children, up to the numerous trips around the world. Weiss actively participated in the construction of this exhibition project, opening his personal archives preserved in Paris, to tell, for the first time in a broad and structured way, his extraordinary story and his work.

Through over 120 prints and numerous documents and magazines of the time, the exhibition traces Weiss's entire career, from his beginnings in 1935 to the 1980s. From the beginning, Sabine Weiss, as evidenced by the photos of children and passers-by in the exhibition, directs her lens on bodies and gestures, immortalizing emotions and feelings, in line with French humanist photography. It is an approach from which he will never deviate, as can be seen from his words: «To be powerful, a photograph must speak to us about an aspect of the human condition, make us feel the emotion that the photographer felt in front of his subject».

Born Weber in Switzerland in 1924, Sabine Weiss was drawn to photography from a young age and served her apprenticeship at the studio of the Boissonas, a dynasty of photographers who had practiced in Geneva since the late 19th century.

After the war, Sabine moved to Paris and became assistant to Willy Maywald, a German photographer specializing in fashion photography and portraits. In 1950 she married the American painter Hugh Weiss and in these years she embarked on a career as an independent photographer: she moved to a small Parisian studio with her husband - where she lived until her death in 2021 - and socialized with the post-war artistic circles, portraying them in photographs that have now become iconic.

One of the main nuclei of the exhibition recounts this period and the moment of international recognition of the photographer: in fact, in 1952 her career took a decisive turn when she joined the Rapho agency and her personal work received immediate critical acclaim in the United States, with exhibitions at the MoMA in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Limelight Gallery in New York.

Three of her photographs were also exhibited as part of the famous exhibition "The Family of Man" organized by Edward Steichen in 1955, and since then Sabine has obtained long-term contracts with all major American publications such as The New York Times Magazine , Life, Newsweek, Vogue, Point de vue-images du monde, Paris Match, Esquire and Holiday. Prestigious collaborations, represented within the exhibition by the exhibition of photographs for Vogue, Elle, Charm and Paris Match.

The exhibition itinerary puts the accent above all on the production of the Fifties, with a particular focus on the photographs of street children, the Parisian scenes, the portraits of artists and documentary photography in a Europe undergoing reconstruction after the war.

From that moment, and until the early 2000s, Sabine Weiss continued to work for the international illustrated press, as well as for numerous institutions and brands, moving seamlessly from reportage to fashion shoots, from advertising to celebrity portraits, to social issues.

Finally, an entire section is dedicated to his famous portraits of artists, writers, actors and musicians, including Alberto Giacometti, André Breton, Georges Braque, Joan Mirò, Kees Van Dongen, Robert Rauschenberg, Niki de Saint Phalle, Romy Schneider, Ella Fitzgerald, Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau and many others.

Finally, the exhibition places particular emphasis on his personal work in black and white since the 1980s, and on his various trips to India, Burma, Bulgaria and Egypt. These works have further contributed to her reputation as an independent and dynamic photographer, with a great humanist sensibility and an incredible attention to the details of everyday life.