Belle-île en Mer (1930-1960)
Pierre Jamet (1910-2000) was a photographer and a singer. In this exhibition, his photographs mirror the everyday life on the island of Belle-Ile off Brittany, France. The opening will be attended by the daughter of the photographer Corinne Jamet-Vierny.
Pierre Jamet was the son of small pork butchers based near the Mouffetard road, and then the Ménilmontant road in Paris. From a very young age he had a taste for song and then acquired his first camera in 1924. After that he never stopped either singing or taking photographs.
In the 1930s, he worked at a number of jobs so as to earn a living: radio in the merchant navy, typist, model, extra and later director of a holiday camp in Belle-île-en-mer. He linked up with Diana Vierny, later to become the founder of Paris Musée Maillol, and took numerous photographs of her. Close to the October group, of which Jacques Prévert was one of the mainstays, he also took several portraits of the poet.
At the time of the Popular Front, he was intensely involved in the rapid development of the Youth Hostel movement. During this period he took a huge number of photographs of these young people so ardent and happy to be alive at that time. These photographs were the subject of the exhibition organised in 1982 by the Fondation Nationale de la Photographie entitled 36 Au-devant de la vie.
In the pre-war years Pierre Jamet published reports in the weekly Regards which at that time also employed Capa, Chim and Cartier Bresson.
After the war he began to sing in the vocal quartet Les Compagnons de Route which later became Les Quatre Barbus but all the while maintaining a constant affection for photography.
In 1991 he took part in the Trio pour une expo exhibition with Fred Mella (Les Compagnons de la chanson) and Paul Tourenne (Les Frères Jacques) which was created at the Château Lumière in Lyon by the Fondation Nationale de la Photographie.
Pierre Jamet was a humanist photographer, witness to his century. Having kept close to a modest France as well as a creative one, his photographic work is diverse. Wanting to record reality he was, among others, the author of important historic traits.
While exhibition opens the 1st of July, an official opening will be held the 7th of July at 6.30pm at the Alliance Française Dublin.
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