Photographer Michael Kenna donates all of his work to France

Scoop at Paris Photo 2022. It was the Minister of Culture who revealed it live.

The internationally renowned British photographer Michael Kenna donates, by notarized agreement signed on November 10, 2022, all of his photographic work to the French State.

It will be kept by the Media Library of Heritage and Photography (MPP) at Fort Saint-Cyr in Montigny-le Bretonneux (Yvelines).

The Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, chose to make the announcement during this 2022 edition of Paris Photo, an international fair which is held until Sunday evening at the Grand Palais Éphémère and on the stands of which this esthete of the empty, foggy, mystical and poetic landscape.

She thanked him, in front of the often severe public of photo amateurs, for this exceptional donation and expressed to him

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Frozen Fountain, Belle Isle, Detroit, Michigan

, 1994, by Michael Kenna © Michael Kenna

The minister wished to honor Michael Kenna by raising him to the rank of officer in the Order of Arts and Letters and symbolically presenting him with his insignia as part of Paris Photo 2022. Michael Kenna was born in 1953 in Widnes (Lancashire ).

From 1972 to 1976, he studied photography at the London College of Printing.

While carrying out commissioned work at the start of his career, he undertook a personal work essentially devoted to landscape (the French are familiar with his series on the Royal Gardens of Versailles).

At the end of the 1970s, he settled in San Francisco, then moved to Portland (Oregon), then to Seattle (Washington) where he currently resides.

Golden Gate Bridge, Study 5, San Francisco (California)

, 1989, by Michael Kenna © Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna works in film and produces all his own prints, in the tradition of Ruth Bernhard (1905-2006), photographer known for his studies of nudes and his still lifes, of which he was the assistant for more than ten years. at the beginning of his career.

Thanks to his work in the darkroom, he shapes his prints like a craftsman in contact with the material, playing on textures and contrasts.

His photographs are often taken at dawn or dusk, in mist or fog.

He appreciates long exposure times, which allow him to capture a reality other than that which is offered at first glance, revealing effects of light and atmospheric phenomena.

Huangshan Mountains, study 1, Anhui (China)

, 2008, by Michael Kenna © Michael Kenna

The new donation covers all of the photographer's work.

It includes 3,683 original prints made in 43 different countries, negatives and scans corresponding to these prints, 175,000 other negatives accompanied by the corresponding contact sheets, 6,422 working prints from the years 1983-2000, 1,280 Polaroid prints, catalogs printed on his work and all the archives relating to his artistic activity for 50 years.

It is accompanied by the rights of production and representation of the images.

Portrait of Michael Kenna by Matteo Colla © Matteo Colla