A fogged window, an umbrella hanging from a cracked wall, a basin of wet laundry, a little girl asleep on a bench… all simple yet strange, Claude Batho's photographs speak of the poetry of everyday life, of common objects and household chores. Ennobled by black and white, individualized by tight framing, and dramatized by the use of light—a light of great purity—these objects almost become allegories.

The mirror reflecting the father's face, blinded by the light streaming through the window, evokes absence, as does the misted window (which brings to mind the work of Czech photographer Josef Sudek) – which can also suggest oblivion or reverie. Disturbing in more ways than one, the photograph of the little girl standing in a doorway, surrounded by brooms, recalls Dutch interiors painted during the Golden Age, while the wet torso wrapped in The Shower Curtain, photographed in 1981, inevitably evokes Erwin Blumenfeld's famous Nude in Wet Silk (1937).

ALLEGORY

Characterized by simplicity, but also by modesty and gentleness, Claude Batho's photographs also possess something of a memento mori quality and evoke a certain melancholy. These photographs […] are filled with the passage of time, on children, people, things. I wanted to capture very simple moments, to retain their silences… " said the photographer who in 1977 published The Moment of Things.

As for Erica Lennard, she focused on portraits of women (her sister Elisabeth, friends, and women she met and admired) from the age of twenty, during those same years, the 1970s and 1980s. These photographs possess a great poetry and elegance, revealing the same keenness and gentleness of her gaze. An all-encompassing gaze that, with sensuality and modesty, exposes the silhouettes and faces to the light.

Set in romantic settings that foreshadow the garden photographs that would bring Erica Lennard a certain notoriety, these women are not photographed as " objects of desire ", but like living, luminous, mysterious and radiant beings... A beautiful ode to woman... by women.
1 1896-1976

“CLAUDE BATHO & ERICA LENNARD – THE LIFE OF WOMEN”
LA GALERIE ROUGE – 3, RUE DU PONT-LOUIS-PHILIPPE, PARIS 4TH ARRONDISSEMENT
UNTIL SEPTEMBER 23, 2023
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