Marc Riboud Photo Exhibition

Leica Camera Japan Co., Ltd. is proud to announce the Marc Riboud Photo Exhibition, held simultaneously at the Leica Gallery Tokyo and Leica Gallery Kyoto. As one of the leading photographers of the 20th century, Marc Riboud is one of the cornerstones of the world-renowned group of photographers known as Magnum Photos, along with other greats such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Robert Capa.

After working as an engineer in Lyon, France, Marc Riboud made his way to Paris in 1952 with a Leica camera round his neck and the determination to become a photographer. “With my camera and one roll of film I walk to the Eiffel Tower like a tourist from the provinces.” With this idea, Riboud captured the extremely popular Eiffel Tower Painter in 1953, and obtained his first publication in Life Magazine. For the next sixty years, Leica became an irreplaceable partner for Riboud, making the perfect combination of a superb photographer and superb camera, proven by the many masterpieces captured around the world.

The Leica Gallery Tokyo exhibition, The World of Marc Riboud, shows some of Marc Riboud’s most famous pieces that form a documentary style replete with his unique poetic sentiment, which intuitively communicates his world view of being ‘more sensitive to the beauty of the world than to its violence’.

The Leica Gallery Kyoto exhibition, Marc Riboud’s View of Japanese Women, showcases pieces carefully selected from his Les Femmes Japonaises, which have never before been collected for show in Japan. No exception to the rule among Magnum photographers when it came to being a world-travelling photographer, or according to his own words a slow wanderer walking for the pleasure of the eye. For sixty years Riboud intermittently travelled Asia, beginning his tour by stay of one year in India, then China in 1957, and discovering Japan in 1958, focusing for the first time on what will become one of his most beloved subjects: women. Those photographs of Japanese women occupy a unique place among Riboud’s masterpieces, showing the exquisite fusion of the observant eye of the photographer and his aesthetic sense. Visions of women in various situations during Japan’s period of rapid growth are the quintessential representation of both tradition and change.

This year, the core of Marc Riboud’s archives will be donated to the National Museum of Asian Arts-Guimet in Paris.

Exhibition Overview

Leica Gallery Tokyo (2F, Leica Ginza Store)　

Title:                 The World of Marc Riboud

Address:                      6-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo-to, Tel: 03-6215-7070

Dates:              September 22 (Fri) 2017 to January 14 (Sun) 2018

Exhibit details:  Fourteen of Marc Riboud’s most famous pieces that showcase his documentary style replete with his unique poetic sentiment

Leica Gallery Kyoto (2F, Leica Kyoto Store)

Title:                 Marc Riboud’s View of Japanese Women

Address:                      570-120 Gionmachiminamigawa, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto-shi, Tel. 075-532-0320 

Dates:              September 23 (Sat) 2017 to January 18 (Thu) 2018

Exhibit details:  Fifteen pieces carefully selected from Les Femmes Japoinaises, which captures visions of women in various situations during Japan’s period of rapid growth