EXTREME HOTEL
Extreme Hotel is the name of a hotel in Addis Ababa, a down-to-earth place where Raymond Depardon likes to stay during his travels in Ethiopia. It is an understated place to stay, a calm place where you can watch the world go by.
The exhibition takes inspiration from this idea: taking the time to observe our surroundings. It brings together 150 colour photographs, from the 60s to the present day, organised into several series, including Farmers’ Land, DATAR, USA, Cartagena and Tokyo. These images reveal a two-part story: about a photojournalist in the grand era of news agencies and striking magazine covers, and about a man, a farmer’s boy, whose gaze moved gradually towards a more liberated, more intimate observation of the world.
Extreme Hotel is the name of a hotel in Addis Ababa, a down-to-earth place where Raymond Depardon likes to stay during his travels in Ethiopia. It is an understated place to stay, a calm place where you can watch the world go by.
The exhibition takes inspiration from this idea: taking the time to observe our surroundings. It brings together 150 colour photographs, from the 60s to the present day, organised into several series, including Farmers’ Land, DATAR, USA, Cartagena and Tokyo. These images reveal a two-part story: about a photojournalist in the grand era of news agencies and striking magazine covers, and about a man, a farmer’s boy, whose gaze moved gradually towards a more liberated, more intimate observation of the world.
Given free rein for this exhibition, Raymond Depardon has decided to open his colour archives to the Pavillon Populaire. He has chosen to share the images published during his career as a photojournalist: from Elizabeth II to the war in Lebanon, the Olympics to the Claustre affair. During the exhibition, we also discover other, more solitary series, where Raymond Depardon spontaneously captures places where nothing is happening, scenes from everyday life, focusing on colours and light. This exploration continues to the present day with USA, an unpublished series produced using a view camera in Texas, New Mexico and South Dakota.
Each series is a journey, a way of existing in the world. Raymond Depardon delivers a colour exploration of the countries he has travelled and the feelings he has experienced during his many trips all over the world. Taking us with him on his travels, he shares his simple, humanist photography, which is deeply moving to the traveller inside us all.
Each series is a journey, a way of existing in the world. Raymond Depardon delivers a colour exploration of the countries he has travelled and the feelings he has experienced during his many trips all over the world. Taking us with him on his travels, he shares his simple, humanist photography, which is deeply moving to the traveller inside us all.
The exhibition will be on display from December 3, 2025, to April 12, 2026, at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier, France. It features 150 framed color photographs, a 10-minute slideshow, original newspaper covers, facsimiles of magazine pages, and personal objects that belonged to the artist.
9 series are presented: La Terre des Paysans, Press Color, la Datar, Extreme Hotel, USA, Glasgow, Cartagena, Tokyo, and Méditerranée.
All of the works on display are from the artist's personal collection.
Printing and framing : Dupon, Paris
Exhibition Design : Perrine Villemur
Graphic Design : Nicolas Hubert
This exhibition was made possible thanks to the support provided by the City of Montpellier (France) and the the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie, Fort de Saint-Cyr, Montigny-le-Bretonneux (France).
9 series are presented: La Terre des Paysans, Press Color, la Datar, Extreme Hotel, USA, Glasgow, Cartagena, Tokyo, and Méditerranée.
All of the works on display are from the artist's personal collection.
Printing and framing : Dupon, Paris
Exhibition Design : Perrine Villemur
Graphic Design : Nicolas Hubert
This exhibition was made possible thanks to the support provided by the City of Montpellier (France) and the the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie, Fort de Saint-Cyr, Montigny-le-Bretonneux (France).
LA TERRE DES PAYSANS
Produced in the 2000s, in La Terre des Paysans, Raymond Depardon pays tribute to his roots, a rural world he had long left behind, swept along with the modern pace of life. Color accompanies this return to his land, his childhood and everything that made him what he is. Born in 1942 in a farm in the Saône Valley, Raymond Depardon recalls the routines of his parents and the everyday scenes in their farmyard, where he took his first color photographs using his Rolleiflex.
One of the images from La Terre des Paysans series, the portrait of Marcel Privat, has now become a postal stamp, an understated symbol of a gradually declining rural France.
Produced in the 2000s, in La Terre des Paysans, Raymond Depardon pays tribute to his roots, a rural world he had long left behind, swept along with the modern pace of life. Color accompanies this return to his land, his childhood and everything that made him what he is. Born in 1942 in a farm in the Saône Valley, Raymond Depardon recalls the routines of his parents and the everyday scenes in their farmyard, where he took his first color photographs using his Rolleiflex.
One of the images from La Terre des Paysans series, the portrait of Marcel Privat, has now become a postal stamp, an understated symbol of a gradually declining rural France.
PRESS COLOR
Black and white has long dominated photojournalism, seen to be the serious purveyor of the truth. The covers of major weeklies such as Paris Match or Life are the only exception: they use color as a means of seduction, to appeal to emotion and grab attention at news stands. Photographers at this time work with two cameras: one loaded with black and white film for journalism and the other with color film to try and secure a cover page, the real holy grail of the photojournalists.
Exhibiting press cuttings from Raymond Depardon’s personal archives, the “Press Color” section tracks his journey as a photojournalist: from Algeria to Vietnam and the Olympics to the Claustre affair. Firstly, for the press, color becomes a starting point for a more liberated, personal and intimate photography.
Black and white has long dominated photojournalism, seen to be the serious purveyor of the truth. The covers of major weeklies such as Paris Match or Life are the only exception: they use color as a means of seduction, to appeal to emotion and grab attention at news stands. Photographers at this time work with two cameras: one loaded with black and white film for journalism and the other with color film to try and secure a cover page, the real holy grail of the photojournalists.
Exhibiting press cuttings from Raymond Depardon’s personal archives, the “Press Color” section tracks his journey as a photojournalist: from Algeria to Vietnam and the Olympics to the Claustre affair. Firstly, for the press, color becomes a starting point for a more liberated, personal and intimate photography.
DATAR
In 1984, the DATAR (French Interministerial Delegation of Land Planning and Regional Attractiveness) commissions several photographers, including Raymond Depardon, for an assignment aiming to document the French countryside. Inspired by photographers such as Walker Evans, Paul Strand and Robert Frank, Raymond Depardon realizes the importance of capturing his own region and chooses to return to the land of his childhood, his family farm. Produced in color and using a view camera, the series accurately captures every last, seemly insignificant, detail: a light, a wax tablecloth, a wallpaper pattern. This more intimate approach to his subject marks the beginning of a change to his practice. He subsequently starts his exacting work with the view camera, which 20 years later results in major series such as La France and more recently USA.
In 1984, the DATAR (French Interministerial Delegation of Land Planning and Regional Attractiveness) commissions several photographers, including Raymond Depardon, for an assignment aiming to document the French countryside. Inspired by photographers such as Walker Evans, Paul Strand and Robert Frank, Raymond Depardon realizes the importance of capturing his own region and chooses to return to the land of his childhood, his family farm. Produced in color and using a view camera, the series accurately captures every last, seemly insignificant, detail: a light, a wax tablecloth, a wallpaper pattern. This more intimate approach to his subject marks the beginning of a change to his practice. He subsequently starts his exacting work with the view camera, which 20 years later results in major series such as La France and more recently USA.
USA
In 2019, Raymond Depardon embarks on a new color series using the view camera in the USA, crossing the states of Texas, New Mexico and the Badlands of South Dakota in particular. Following on from La France series (2004 - 2009), he adopts the same head-on angle and the same attentive gaze on intermediate areas. Service stations, road-side restaurants and other non-places thus become the subject of his exploration. Motivated by an insatiable curiosity and an ever-new enjoyment of capturing the world, in this series Raymond Depardon cultivates a constant desire for new horizons and for travel. USA, as of yet unfinished, is presented here for the first time.
In 2019, Raymond Depardon embarks on a new color series using the view camera in the USA, crossing the states of Texas, New Mexico and the Badlands of South Dakota in particular. Following on from La France series (2004 - 2009), he adopts the same head-on angle and the same attentive gaze on intermediate areas. Service stations, road-side restaurants and other non-places thus become the subject of his exploration. Motivated by an insatiable curiosity and an ever-new enjoyment of capturing the world, in this series Raymond Depardon cultivates a constant desire for new horizons and for travel. USA, as of yet unfinished, is presented here for the first time.
EXTREME HOTEL
EXTREME HOTEL brings together a new selection of images taken from several series produced in different areas of the world between 2004 and 2019. A far cry from the limitations of photojournalism, this roaming photography has no clear aim. It explores a freer relationship with color and the world. It has a unique way of framing from a height, in a vertical format, which reveals both the subject and the presence of the photographer. Allowing himself to go beyond searching for a key moment, Raymond Depardon often returns to the places where he shot his former reports, where he roams, with no expectations or nostalgia, using color as he pleases, a nomad at heart, rich in his solitude.
He says his images are like a corridor with clouds, roads where everything is mixed together: continents, countries, regions, cities and countrysides.
He says his images are like a corridor with clouds, roads where everything is mixed together: continents, countries, regions, cities and countrysides.
GLASGOW
In 1980, Raymond Depardon visits Glasgow twice for a commission from the Sunday Times. He discovers a city marked by the economic crisis, with working-class neighborhoods and wastelands. The newspaper refuses to print his images, deemed too personal and not informative enough. However, this series marks a key stage in his career: color no longer accompanies a subject, it becomes the subject. This work, undiscovered until 2013, is now supplemented with around 50 original images found in Raymond Depardon’s archives and presented as a 10-minute slideshow. The series of images invites us to follow in his footsteps, feel the atmosphere of the city and understand what caught his attention.
In 1980, Raymond Depardon visits Glasgow twice for a commission from the Sunday Times. He discovers a city marked by the economic crisis, with working-class neighborhoods and wastelands. The newspaper refuses to print his images, deemed too personal and not informative enough. However, this series marks a key stage in his career: color no longer accompanies a subject, it becomes the subject. This work, undiscovered until 2013, is now supplemented with around 50 original images found in Raymond Depardon’s archives and presented as a 10-minute slideshow. The series of images invites us to follow in his footsteps, feel the atmosphere of the city and understand what caught his attention.
CARTAGENA
In 1993, in Cartagena, Raymond Depardon films a 4-minute sequence shot, the time it takes to go from day to night, which is to become a short film for Amnesty International, decrying the situation of Alirio de Jesús Pedraza Becerra, a wrongly imprisoned Colombian lawyer. In 2015, nearly 25 years after the initial filming, Raymond Depardon returns to Cartagena. This time, he roams the city, with a unique
camera, the Plaubel Makina W67. This medium format camera, larger than the 24x36 one he normally uses for his photojournalism, broadens his field of vision and enables him to rediscover the atmosphere of his memories.
In 1993, in Cartagena, Raymond Depardon films a 4-minute sequence shot, the time it takes to go from day to night, which is to become a short film for Amnesty International, decrying the situation of Alirio de Jesús Pedraza Becerra, a wrongly imprisoned Colombian lawyer. In 2015, nearly 25 years after the initial filming, Raymond Depardon returns to Cartagena. This time, he roams the city, with a unique
camera, the Plaubel Makina W67. This medium format camera, larger than the 24x36 one he normally uses for his photojournalism, broadens his field of vision and enables him to rediscover the atmosphere of his memories.
TOKYO
In 1964, Raymond Depardon discovers Japan, covering the Tokyo Olympics. More than 50 years later, in 2016 and 2017, he returns without a commission, free to roam, gaze and capture. He wanders the city, camera in hand, guided by light, movement and faces, and allows simple images to take shape, shot in the moment, at the pace of everyday life.
In 1964, Raymond Depardon discovers Japan, covering the Tokyo Olympics. More than 50 years later, in 2016 and 2017, he returns without a commission, free to roam, gaze and capture. He wanders the city, camera in hand, guided by light, movement and faces, and allows simple images to take shape, shot in the moment, at the pace of everyday life.
MEDITERRANEAN
In the 60s and 70s, Raymond Depardon travels the Mediterranean region, from Beirut to Byblos and Taormina to the Port of Hydra. He captures a gentle life: bright alleys, first beach outings, carefree youth and busy cafés. Photographed first before the war then during the confrontations, both sides of Beirut are revealed. These images illustrate the extent to which life can exist alongside war, and how Raymond Depardon uses light and color to compare opposing realities.
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