MALAGA.- With more than 150 photographs from the 1920s and ‘30s, the exhibition at Centre Pompidou Málaga highlights the work of some twenty women, all significant figures in the history of photography, among them Laure Albin Guillot, Marianne Breslauer, Florence Henri, nora Dumas, Germaine Krull and Dora Maar.

The period between the two world wars witnessed on the one hand the growth of advertising and of the illustrated press, and on the other the emergence of avant-garde photography. These developments brought about an expansion of the market for images and encouraged the modernisation of photography as a profession. Photography thus came to seem a particularly attractive career for women seeking financial and social independence. Working on commission for publishers of books and magazines, photographers like Laure Albin Guillot and Ergy Landau set up studios where they shot portraits, fashion photographs and adverts, while others like Germaine Krull, Denise Bellon and Nora Dumas shot reportages. It is this particular moment of modernity and the emergence of women as professional photographers that the exhibition seeks to explore.

The Málaga exhibition reflects the wealth and diversity of the work of these women photographers in nudes, portraits, reportages, advertising images and fashion photographs drawn from the centre Pompidou’s collection. the majority comes from the christian Bouqueret collection recently acquired thanks to the support of Yves Rocher.

The photographer’s profession went through a period of dramatic growth in the interwar period. Technical improvements to the medium, as well as developments in publishing and the illustrated press, were key factors in the expansion of a new empire of the image, leading to new demands and attractions for many recent arrivals to the field. Information, advertising, fashion—there were so many areas where photography subsequently gained ground as a modern alternative to drawing or painting. It likewise benefited from the attention of avantgarde artists, as they renewed its visual vocabulary; these formal innovations were then taken up by professional photographers in their commercial work. Their images not only reflect the radical cultural and social evolution of Western society in the early twentieth century, but they also fully contributed to the advent of new forms of consumption and encouraged the cultivation of the cult of appearance.

Women, who were omnipresent as models in this shared imaginary world, were equally present as creators: many of them were amateur photographers, and many others, in the search for financial and social emancipation, also chose photography as their profession. Nowadays, these women hold a rather discreet role in the histories of the period, with the exception of great practitioners like Laure Albin Guillot, Florence Henri, Dora Maar and Germaine Krull. Many of them worked in France, and specifically in Paris, a modern city par excellence and a meeting point for many artists, photographers, writers and intellectuals, whether French or foreign. The study of their images and the context of how they became known, demonstrates that it would be futile to defend the idea of any sort of specifically feminine gaze, technique or subject matter. Rather, female photographers from between the wars, used the same tools, moved through the same networks and reached out to the same public as their male counterparts, without playing on differences.

It is at first sight not particularly clear why a woman would have chosen this profession: it required undeniable physical qualities; it often implied rough negotiations and it demanded to operate in the public sphere, which was still largely reserved for men. However, many factors explain the allure of this profession. Unlike the other visual arts, photography was at that time considered a “lesser” art, and was not weighed down by a long tradition. Ever since the nineteenth century women had been welcomed into amateur photography societies, publishing and participating in exhibitions, without being hindered by the restrictions they would have come across over a long period of time in consolidated fields like painting and sculpture. The professional practice of the medium did not enjoy particular social prestige; it did not require any sort of specific apprenticeship, diploma, or official certificate.

We should here recall that the education and legal rights of women in France, unlike in the United States and many European countries of the time, was eminently limited. They were not given access to secondary education equivalent to that of men until 1924, and they could only legally vote after the Second World War. If married women had direct access to their wages from 1907 onwards, they could still not register for university without spousal authorization until 1938, and even had to request the husband’s permission to be able to work as late as 1965. What is more, salaried work for women, even while it had undergone improvements since the nineteenth century, tended to be limited to jobs as assistants, teachers or sales clerks in shops, where women were generally under the yoke of male authority. In contrast, photography allowed women to run their own businesses and make a living which was equivalent to that of a male photographer. It also enabled them to liberate themselves from conservative bourgeois mores. The majority of these women came from well-off backgrounds, and were either single, widowed or divorced; they were often close to feminist currents of the time. Little affected by the birth-rate propaganda that intensified after the First World War, they rarely had children themselves. They tended to move in avant-garde circles, amongst artists, intellectuals, writers and socialites who shared their concerns and the freedom of their chosen lifestyle. This exhibition brings together more than 160 photographic prints made by some 20 women, proceeding from the collections of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou. The majority of the images belonged to the collection of Christian Bouqueret. A specialist in interwar photography in France, he was one of the first individuals to show interest in and seek to honour the work of these female photographers.