Focus on Jean Dieuzaide through photography his passion, Toulouse his city and Occitan his culture
In 2021, Toulouse described the 100 years of the birth of photographer Dieuzaide and his 60 years of photography. For the occasion, a major retrospective was organized at the Jacobins convent last December.
An exhibition “Jean Dieuzaide, 60 of photographs” was organized in Toulouse last December on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the photographer’s birth and the 60 years he has dedicated to his art.
A great Occitan figure, he is the creator of the very first public gallery in France devoted to photography: the Gallery of the Water Tower in Toulouse.
The Toulouse photographer Jean Dieuzaide would have been 100 years old in June 2021. He was born on June 20, 1921 in Grenade-sur-Garonne and died on September 18, 2003 in Toulouse.
Iconic shots of Jean Dieuzaide, we all have them in mind like this very famous photo of Dali:
This shot, like others known, for example the “Little Girl with the Rabbit”, or the “Gypsy of Sacromonte”, he did not make them in Toulouse but during trips through Spain, or even Portugal and Turkey from where he brought back a number of portraits of men and women on which he took a humanist look.
Photography was his life, his passion. Toulouse was his city.
It was in Toulouse and in the region that he created most of his work. It was in his pink city that Jean Dieuzaide created the Château d’Eau gallery in 1974, a place entirely dedicated to photography.
The very first public gallery in France devoted to this art, which put Toulouse at the center of photography in France, and even beyond…
The Château d’Eau was completed with an exhibition of works by Robert Doisneau. Since then, Le Château d’Eau, an art center dedicated to contemporary photography, has been offering exhibitions of both established and emerging French and international photographers.
Certain photos of Dieuzaide are known throughout the world, he who had chosen to always stay in Toulouse. Besides, he called himself “Yan”, that is to say Jean in Occitan Gascon. He was through his photos a sort of chronicler of life in Toulouse.
Jean Dieuzaide has worked all his life for the recognition of his art.
He was part very early, from 1946, of several circles of photographers. Founding member of the Libre Expression Group, in order to promote modern and avant-garde photography, he invests in meetings of Lure in Lurs. He is involved alongside the founding team of Arles International Photography Meetings.
He works tirelessly in the exercise of his profession as a photographer, but also in the recognition of it.
His commitment is also humanist, he took a documentary look at contemporary Toulouse, Occitan, French and foreign society.
Disappeared in 2003, Jean Dieuzaide remains today the only photographer to hold both prizes Niepce and Nadar, presented as the Goncourt or the Renaudot of photography. His work is estimated at nearly a million dollars.
Some photos of Dieuzaide are known all over the world, they represent portraits, anonymous people or celebrities, Jean Giono, Boris Vian or Doisneau. He even produced one of the first official portraits of General de Gaulle.
A complete photographer, he dabbled in everything: everyday life, the abstract, landscapes. In the 1960s, he embarked on advertising and industrial photography. Between 1960-1970, he made a large number of pictures of industrial life.
Sport, culture, politics, agriculture, town planning, culture, private and public events, still lifes, advertising orders…
In 60 years Dieuzaide has taken more than 600,000 shots. A large part of his work, a very important fund, 500,000 pieces are in the archives of the town hall of Toulouse.
Jean Dieuzaide has long signed his photos with his name in Occitan: Yan. Because Dieuzaide is fluent in Occitan.
The show Viure al Pais from Sunday April 10, 2022 invites you to discover him in archive images where he speaks in the patois of the Gers. In 1983, Maurici Andrieu interviewed the artist at length, an interview from which we offer several excerpts.
He will tell us about his career, his commitment, his work… and will tell us a few anecdotes.
Thus, when he had to play the tightrope walkers for “La noce sur un fil”, a wedding of tightrope walkers on the Place du Capitole in 1954.
The girl’s father told me: “if you are swollen, you can climb on my shoulders”. What ? The girl climbed with this ladder, rope ladder. And of course, the last is me. Everyone is there, in place, except the photographer. But this p… of a ladder, I didn’t know a rope ladder. I put my foot there and boom! The foot that goes away. Macarel! And everyone who is there. The Rolleiflex hanging from the shoulder, I have to go up not with my feet, it’s not possible…
Jean Dieuzaide
This program broadcast on Sunday April 10 at 10:45 a.m. on France 3 Occitanie is entirely dedicated to photography, you can also discover the portrait of a young woman from Ariège: Alice Traisnel who is a photographer, ethnologist and linguist all at the same time.
To read, on the Occitan blog of France 3, an article concerning the report of Viure al País offered to Alice Traisnel: Meeting with a contemporary photographer.