Curator Virginie Chardin draws a portrait of Pierre de Fenoÿl, a man who literally devoted his life to photography. Starting from a very young age, he worked in every possible field of photography as a reporter, an archivist, an exhibition curator, a gallerist, an art buyer and of course, as a photographer.

The objective of this exhibition at the Château de Tours (from June 20th to October 31st 2015) is to try and show the depth and diversity of Pierre de Fenoyl’s work and to go back over his career with the help of material from the family archives. Combining prints, documents, projections, publications, films and sounds, it will provide the perfect opportunity to rediscover the elegant and majestic work of a photographer who had a love affair with black and white photography and to apprehend his aspiration to capture what lies beyond the subject. Visitors to the exhibition will understand just how unique this timeless and coherent body of work really is, shot as it was in the Eighties, truly a prolific and creative period in the history of photography. His body of work could best be described as representing a search for the sacred element, nourished by the Confessions of St Augustine and the act of walking and inspired by the spectacle of Nature. His landscapes, devoid of any human presence and filled with a mysterious silence, are sometimes as evocative of Flemish or Italian landscape paintings, as works by the masters of French primitive photography.

The Bookshop’s choice
Pierre de Fenoÿl in L’Oeil de la photographie