Gallery hours: Fridays & Saturdays 11-6 pm & by appointment
Patricia Laligant Photographs is pleased to announce an
exhibition of vintage photographs from 1940-44 by French photographer Roger
Schall (1904-1985) showing Paris under the German occupation.
Before World War II, Roger
Schall worked mostly as a reporter. From 1932 to 1935, he covered the
construction of the ship Normandie at Le Havre. In 1934, Vogue introduced
him to the world of fashion where Schall excelled. In 1935, the magazine
Vu asked him to cover the inaugural voyage of the Normandie from
Le Havre to New York. Then in 1936, he was sent by Vu to Berlin to cover
the preparation of the Olympic Games. In 1938, he was sent by Paris Match
to cover the Nuremberg party rally, and the conference in Munich. He also did a
few reportages in 1939 for the magazine Life.
Then, from June 14, 1940 to
August 25, 1944 the German occupied Paris. During that period, the Propaganda
Staffel, the German censorship that was established at 52, Avenue des
Champs-Elysées, was controlling the theater, broadcasting, films, the arts and
the publication of books. Any Frenchman earning his living in the arts or the
press had to pass through these offices.
In 1940, obliged to be
registered as a professional photographer to the Kommendantur, the
German headquarters located Place de l’Opéra, Schall held card 135 and did
free-lance assignments in black and white, many of them in the fields of
fashion and entertainment. For his nightclub sequences taken after midnight, he
received a special permit, or Ausweis. Beside his professional work,
Roger Schall covered extensively the German occupation of Paris. Those
photographs were never seen by the censorship, as he kept carefully all his
negatives aside.
Then, as soon as the
occupation was over, Raymond Schall, brother of Roger Schall, published a book:
A Paris sous la Botte des Nazis / Paris under the Heel of the Nazis illustrated
with the photographs of Roger Schall, Joublin, Parry, Vals, Jarnoux, Papillon,
Berson, Roughol, Pichonnier, Jahan, Coutant, Doisneau and the Seeberger
brothers. The book was a bestseller and was reedited five times. Some of the
photographs exhibited in the show are reproduced in that book. The photographs
on display show the occupant in his daily life: guarding the German
headquarters in a deserted city, guarding Versailles, in their weekly march on
the Champs Elyseés, taking the subway, visiting the Louvre, going to
spectacles, shopping…
Since many artists refused
to be registered at the Kommandantur, the controversy regarding Roger
Schall is still going on. Can we consider that Schall collaborated with the
German occupant? Or as suggested in the last movie of Bertrand Tavernier on the
same subject: Laisser Passer / Safe Conduct, should we rather ask
ourselves what was then the most courageous attitude: being against the
occupant but decide to continue to work anyway, hoping that by knowing them
better we could fight them better, or being against the occupant and doing
nothing? An active or a passive resistance? Today rare photographs showing the
German occupation of Paris are historical documents which prove what really
happened.
After World War II, Schall
continued to work until 1965. In 1982, during an interview with Schall, Roger
Thérond, director of Paris Match, said to him: “You were one of those
who kept alive and fanned the spark of journalism that would never die. Do not
blush, Roger Schall, this is the truth”.