the essential
A series of photographs by Émile Zola is presented until May 23 at the Mazades cultural center in Toulouse. This exhibition at the Château d’eau gallery, which closed its doors for renovations, has been relocated to the heart of the Minimes district. The opportunity to discover the writer from a new angle.
We know Zola the writer, for his romantic fresco The Rougon-Macquarts, but also Zola the journalist, and his involvement in the Dreyfus affair. But it is Zola the photographer that we discover here, while his interest in this art remains unknown to the general public. The thirty images exhibited show the precision and passion with which he practiced it, as an autodidact. “Émile Zola left a rich body of work: more than 7,000 photos are known, which represents a very important production for the time,” explains Magali Blénet, director of the Château d’eau gallery.
He reveals himself in his privacy, surrounded by his children, Denise, Jacques, and his mistress, Jeanne. But also alone, in self-portraits, standing, sitting, or even lying on hay, serious look and furrowed eyebrows. “Émile Zola’s photographic work reveals another facet, a different tone, almost sentimental,” explains Magali Blénet. It becomes a gateway to his private life, far from his work as a writer.
Manon Van Overbeck
A naturalist, he was not afraid to show the reality of his time, and in particular of the working world, with its harshness and violence. “One might expect to discover extremely rigorous photographic writing, marked by a documentary approach […]. But we ultimately have a body of work that is comparable to that of a good amateur photographer, with fairly classic subjects,” explains Mathilde Falguière, heritage curator, head of the photography department of the Architecture and Heritage Media Library. Despite everything, we find Zola’s interest in new things with photos of trains, modern boats, or even the Eiffel Tower, just built.
