The new Lille Institute of Photography will host the photography collections of Bettina Reims, Jean-Louis Schuylkopf and Anais Varda, and announced on Wednesday 16 June that its library will be a publishing reference place, thanks to a generous donation of more than 25,000 photography books from a private collector.

The archives of these three French photographers, who “Taking into account the diversity of the fields of photographic activity according to very distinct aesthetic approaches” will be too “An important resource for the critical study of our society from the 1940s to the present day”, estimated the institute in a press release.

“With this money, the Institute of Photography confirms its heritage ambition and key role in the photographic landscape.”Its president, Marine Kremets, rejoices, whose money is this? “of great importance to the history of photography.”

Bettina Rhimes, born in 1952, entrusted the Institute with all of its archives: negatives, contact papers, Polaroids, prints, photographic art files, notes, publications including journals and its library. She preferred to work in the studio, worked in advertising, photographed stars, and produced the official portrait of President Jacques Chirac. She also has more personal work, especially about the female body. In 2014, she produced more than 50 portraits of female prisoners.

Born in 1946, Jean-Louis Chulkov has a documentary approach and is interested in social issues, particularly the consequences of the end of the industrial age on urban landscapes. He worked in Saint-Étienne, in Genoa, in Rotterdam, Stuttgart, Barcelona, ​​in the 13th and 19th arrondissements of Paris, in Lille Robaix-Turcoeng. He deposits at the Institute all his negatives, ektachromes and contact papers as well as his paper archives.

If Agnes Varda (1928-2019) is known as a film director, she also has photographic work. “to explore”Institute is estimated. She has been the notable official photographer of the National People’s Theater since 1949 and has undertaken many personal projects. Its beneficiaries entrust all their negatives, contact papers and contact fingerprints to the institute.

A private collector has pledged to donate and recommend more than 25,000 books to the Institut pour la Photographyie de Lille: his library, built over forty years ago, includes in particular many books on Japanese photography. Annual donations began in 2020 with more than 2,000 books.

These funds will be provided during the Institute’s third and final program before it closes for business in October 2021.

The Institute of Photography, located in a private chateau in Lille, opened its doors at the end of 2019. It was created by the district of Hauts-de-France and Rencontres d’Arles.