Charlotte Perriand – Photographies

Created by the Académie des beaux-arts in 2020, this exhibit presents 48 photograph by French architect and designer Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999). From 1927 to 1940 she explored the rural world, natural objects (which she, Fernand Léger, and Pierre Jeanneret called “art brut”), industrial structures, mountains and more with her camera. This wide variety of subjects provides a glimpse of the artist’s lesser-known side and reveals a highly unique sense of composition and poetry.

These prints make us wonder about the meanings Perriand, a woman involved in the progressive interwar artistic and industrial movement, assigned to photography.

Selected from the stock of Charlotte Perriand’s photographs managed by her daughter, Pernette Perriand-Barsac, and her son-in-law, Jacques Barsac, these photos have rarely been shown in public.