Women War Photographers celebrated in key Paris exhibition

The Women War Photographers exhibition at the Liberation of Paris museum, which opens on International Women's Day on 8 March, takes stock of the huge contribution to war reporting by women in the 20th and 21st centuries. Through the lens of eight photographers from Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus, the exhibition shines a light on women's involvement in conflicts, as fighters, victims, or witnesses.

"Women have been on the frontlines for almost a century, taking images without hiding the horror of what they have seen. Some have even died for their profession," says Sylvie Zaidman, historian, curator and director of the Musée de la Libération de Paris/Musée du Général Leclerc/Musée Jean Moulin.

The collection offers visitors the keys to understanding the world today, Zaidman told RFI, explaining that bringing the exhibition, originally shown in Germany and Switzerland, to Paris was an "obvious choice" and long overdue.

Who are these women? How did they work? What sets them apart from their male colleagues? The Women War Photographers exhibition, runs until 31 December, sets out to undermine the established stereotypes of the war reporter.

Faced with prejudice and often overlooked by news agencies, women have nonetheless quietly been shaping the war reporting profession over the years, bringing the public an in-depth understanding of conflicts around the globe on their own terms. 

        

Behind the frontlines    

From early on, women photographers, if they had access to war at all, were often relegated to life behind the front lines, taking pictures of hospitals and fleeing civilians.

This was, in the end, something that worked to their advantage, explains Anne-Marie Beckmann, director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Frankfurt, who instigated the first exhibition.

"This was a remarkable advantage especially in patriarchal cultures. Female photographers are not perceived as threats and can therefore move about more inconspicuously, which, among other things, allows them to approach women and children," Beckmann told RFI ahead of the opening.

"What we recognised is also that they produce more pictures in which women are depicted not just as victims of war but as active participants," she says.

The Second World War was a turning point for women in this sense, Zaidman says, as women joined the French Resistance  in great numbers and were finally given the vote in 1945.

Probably the most well-known photographer in the exhibition is the American Lee Miller (1907-1977). Thanks to her position at Vogue magazine, she was able to travel with American troops in World War II and cover the liberation of Europe and the flight of German soldiers.

A plaque was unveiled in Paris on Monday, in honour of her contributions to war reporting.

Miller's works are joined by those of seven other women photographers who vary in their approach to covering the events they faced. These include: Gerda Taro (1910-1937), Catherine Leroy (1944-2006), Christine Spengler (b. 1945), Françoise Demulder (1947-2008), Susan Meiselas (b. 1948), Carolyn Cole (b. 1961) to Anja Niedringhaus (1965-2014). 

The exhibition spans various international conflicts from 1936 to 2011 from Asia, to the Americas, to the Middle East.

Despite restrictions and not always having the same access to battle zones in the same way as men, none of these women shied away from revealing the atrocities of war.

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"At a pace set by the news machinery and under the difficult conditions of war, these photographers have created images full of sensitivity, strength and humanity, which are valid far beyond their status as news supplements," says Anne-Marie Beckmann.

"With their feel for composition and the right angle, the photographers have not only succeeded in concentrating upon the most essential things, they have done it in a way that makes the eye linger on their pictures, despite the harrowing themes.

"Their subtle visual vocabularies allow the photographs to reveal an even more lasting effect, to the point that they become part of our collective memory."

Multiple facets

For Zaidman, an example of this can be found in Françoise Demulder's portrait of a Muslim woman, pleading with one of the Christian militia members in Lebanon, as seen in the main photograph of this article.

"The man dressed in black, seen from the back dominates the scene where people are running to flee ruins in flames. That's where we can really see that these courageous women photographers were at the heart of major conflicts," she explains.

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Thanks to lighter equipment and new ways of disseminating information, war journalism has entered a new age. The number of female photojournalists in the field has continued to grow, bringing with it multiple possibilities for sharing stories and understanding the complex facets of conflict.

"As a historian, what strikes me is that with the multitude of photos made possible by new technology, we no longer take the time to really look at a picture. We don't really take note of who took it, or why and not even the meaning attributed to it," Zaidman concludes.

"That's why I think it's necessary to take the time to focus on a subject, the lighting, the framing and the professional perspective, which is what we have done in this exhibition."

Women War Photographers runs from 8 March 2022 - 31 December 2022 at the Musée de la Libération de Paris-Musée du général Leclerc-Musée Jean Moulin, in Paris.