Chi is behind the great photographic heritagesto the collections, to the funds of the municipalities and families? They are the collectors. We often identify them with merchants of works, sometimes we judge them with subtle contempt by imagining that they are the ones to dictate the rules of the market, to ensure that the artist, worthy or not, is successful.
In reality, the panorama of collecting is very large and there are many inside, from the refined and cultured lovers of the image to unscrupulous traders who decree the success of bad photographic crusts with strong colors to hang in the lounges of the enriched with all latitudes.
Collect photography, keep memory
However, collectors are also and above all, those who keep and protect our visual heritage. So, when they go on display in our country, so deaf and blind to the theme of conservation, we must hurry and go to see to enjoy what has been handed down to us thanks to these philanthropists. Yes, because cOleration of photography is not just preserving works, but producing knowledge and memory. Therefore priceless to recognize the value of these operations and be grateful to men and women who have dedicated life for this purpose.
Bachelot collection, on display in Turin 90 portraits
And talking about collectors, now on display in Turin there is Portraits. Florence and Damien collection Bachelot, at the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento, until 5 October next.
90 portraits that include the greatest masters of photography: Lewis Hine, Arnold Newman, Irving Penn, Dorothea Lange, Saul Leiter, Nan Goldin, Ann Ray, Mohamed Bourouissa and Gilles Caron. Premising that we have not seen the exhibition, we are interested in discovering the boats.
Yves Saint-Laurent Pour Vogue-Robo Rouge 1962 Photos of William Klein
How was the Bachelot collection born?
In the early years of the new millennium, Damien Bachelot and his members, Claude Garnier, Jean-Pascal Mahieu and Yves Hervieu-Cousse, give life to a company collection for the Aphorge Finance group, but in 2009, after the great financial crisis of 2008, the photographic collection is at risk. Art is no longer a priority and the collection is purchased entirely by Damien and his wife Florence. Born as a corporate investment, it becomes an exclusively family project. Since then the spouses have enriched it by purchasing important pieces, ranging from street photography to portrait with special attention for the work of Saul Leiter whose original prints taken by the Maestro since the late 1940s.
Who are the bachelot spouses?
He is a banker, she works in the medical sector. If it is true that the collection was born by chance, it is to be swear that it became a mission: initially the focus was on French humanists photographers, then the Americans were added – Robert Frank, Bruce Davidson, Saul Leiter, Joel Meyerowitz – then contemporary artists and new talents. They do not seek iconic images, on the contrary, favor the least seen. They do not resell, do not trade, seek vintage prints, chase the impeccable quality, black and white and small formats.
And, as happens to many collectors, their treasures live with them.
What heritage are we talking about?
It is about 1,000 photographs. In France it is considered one of the largest private print collections. Exceptional pieces for quality and history: rare prints, silver, chromogenic or coal pigments, original editions, printing tests and limited editions.
Hemingway about 1958 photos of Ken Heyman
A walk in the last century
It is truly a journey in the last century of the millennium that offers this precious photographic collection. Moreover, it was the century of the eighth art. If The 800 was of painting and the new millennium of artificial intelligence, throughout the 1900s, photography acted undisturbed giving humanity an invaluable heritage, As precious as romantic and seductive. Just scroll through the names of the artists in the collection, there are all the older ones because the spouses Bachelot have not improvised curators and for their project they had exceptional consultants, from Sam Stoordzé, today director of Villa Medici in Rome who in this prestigious institution has exhibited the collection in extended form in 2022, to the American gallery owner Howard Greenberg.
A journey into humanity
The decades, wars and social conflicts, the evolutions of the landscape and portraits, many portraits of the protagonists of history, the famous and the strangers are traveled.
A journey into humanity to (re) get to know us and want us a little more well.
The exhibition
Portraits. Florence and Damien Bachelot collection Curated by Tiziana Bonomo.
Promoted by the Imago Mundi Cultural Association
National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento, until 5 October next
www.museorisorgimentoTorino.it