Women In Motion continues to honor the work of Sabine Weiss

Sabine Weiss, Women In Motion and Les Rencontres d’Arles

In 2019, Kering partnered with Les Rencontres d’Arles, extending the Women In Motion program to the photography festival. This heralded the creation of the Women In Motion Award for photography, which aims to shine a light on women photographers.
In 2020, the Franco-Swiss photographer Sabine Weiss became the second recipient of the Award. Weiss was born in 1924, in the canton of Valais. She holds a special place in the history of photography. As the last representative of the humanist school of photography, the work of Sabine Weiss is dedicated to portrayals of people’s daily lives and to capturing their emotions.
For nearly 60 years, she carried out photo-reportage, portraits, fashion shoots and advertising photos for the likes of Vogue, the New York Times Magazine, Life and Esquire. In the early 1950s, with help from Robert Doisneau, she joined the Rapho photo agency, with her work soon gaining recognition in the United States, including an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Exploring the Women In Motion podcast 

On the occasion of the award presentation, Sabine Weiss has recorded an episode of the Women In Motion podcast to encourage discussion about the representation of women in culture and the arts. Interviewed by Géraldine Sarratia, she describes her very early attraction to photography, her career in France and abroad, and the challenges she has faced as a woman in a field that was considered to be male-dominated in the 1960s. Enjoy listening!

Discover the other episodes of the Women In Motion podcast

Showcasing Sabine Weiss at the Elles X Paris Photo exhibition

In 2020, Kering joined forces with Paris Photo in support of the Elles X Paris Photo exhibition which was organized by France’s Ministry of Culture. To make up for the cancellation of the 2020 event, which is traditionally held at Le Grand Palais, a digital version of the exhibition was created via a specific website. The latter features 30 photographers – including Sabine Weiss – who share their views on their status as women artists, their commitments as activists and their sources of inspiration. 

Celebrating the centenary of Sabine Weiss’ birth at Elysée Photo

From June 22 through September 29, 2024, Lausanne’s Photo Elysée will celebrate Sabine Weiss’ body of work. In an exhibition supported by Kering, the museum has invited the visual artist Nathalie Boutté to engage in a dialogue with the Franco-Swiss artist’s photographs. 
In 2017, Sabine Weiss chose Photo Elysée to house her archives. This tribute showcase presents a selection of 20,000 negatives and 7,000 contact sheets that were donated to the museum’s collections, together with 2,700 vintage prints, 2,000 modern prints and photographic slides, 3,500 working prints as well as accompanying material which all served to inspire Nathalie Boutté’s creations. With her laser focus on the photographer’s studio work, the French visual artist cuts strips of paper bearing texts related to the chosen image. In doing so, quotes from Sabine Weiss are assembled to reconstruct the original photograph.