Since 2016, Picto Foundation, PICTO laboratories’ endowment fund, has been pleased to partner with Gens d’images to celebrate and support the Niépce Prize. The 69th edition of the Niépce Gens d’images Prize has just been awarded to French photographer Anne-Lise Broyer. Emmanuelle Kouchner, editorial director at Delpire/Libella, submitted her application. The exhibition of the 2023 winner, Juliette Agnel, will open its doors on June 14 at the Jeu de Paume – Tours.
A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Atelier National de Recherches Typgraphiques, Anne-Lise Broyer has been pursuing a singular photographic work for more than 20 years, that can be summed up as an experience of literature through the gaze, by knotting very intimately reading and image emergence, writing and photography, as showed by her numerous editions shared with Pierre Michon, Bernard Noël, Colette Fellous, Yannick Haenel, Jean-Luc Nancy, Suzanne Doppelt, Mathilde Girard, Léa Bismuth, Muriel Pic, Jean-Luc Germain, Colin Lemoine…
She works on her series like a writer wielding language, but in a language spoken and heard through the eye. The use of a graphic pencil drawing directly on the silver print creates visual situations that refer to the specificity of the photographic image and its technical history (photogenic drawing, daguerreotype, etc…) This process is a journey between two sensitive worlds, the world of sight (photography), and the world of the hand (writing). The eye gently welcomes the images, before letting them descend into the hand. The spectator wanders through the image, from one technique to another, as in a forest where the eye gets lost, stumbles upon a trunk, and finds the opening of a path again: the full frame.
In 2024, the Niépce Gens d’images Prize has be given €15,000 by ADAGP and PICTO Foundation. The winner will also benefit from a Gens d’images Workshop with a conference organized in Paris on Wednesday, June 19, 2024, at the ADAGP auditorium, an exhibition at the French National Library François Mitterrand from December 2024 to February 2025, and an exhibition at the Jeu de Paume Tours during the summer of 2025, supported by the Ministry of Culture. They will also benefit from an exhibition from January to March 2026, under copyright of €2,000, organized by the Galerie Dityvon – University of Angers, as well as the acquisition of prints by the Prints and Photography department of the BnF.
