Franco-Swiss photographer Sabine Weiss died Tuesday, December 28 at her home in Paris, at the age of 97, her family and team announced to AFP on Wednesday. Born in Switzerland in 1924 and naturalized French in 1995, Ms. Weiss lived in Paris, where she had set up her studio on Boulevard Murat since 1949.
Like Doisneau, Boubat, Willy Ronis or Izis, Sabine Weiss has immortalized the simple life of people, without however claiming any influence. A pioneer of post-war photography and French humanist photography, she was also known for her fashion photos in Vogue. She said that a good photo “must touch, be well composed and stripped. The sensitivity of people must be obvious“.
Winner of the Women in Motion in 2020 Photography Prize, officially awarded in Arles in 2021, she has been the subject of some 160 exhibitions around the world. A discreet personality, this bubbly artist of 1m55, denied having suffered from any “segregation” as a woman and wanted to establish “a constant dialogue” with her subject, considering photography as “a friendship”.
She had walked with joy the Museon Arlaten in Arles last July, at the last photography meetings, where her exhibition was presented: black and white photos, from the 1950s to today, mostly street scenes, portraits of child beggars or street vendors, alley cats and popular balls.
More recently, Sabine Weiss went to the Planches-Contact festival in Deauville for a meeting with the public. The upcoming exhibition at Casa de Tre Oci in Venice from March 10 to October 25, 2022, will be a “tribute exhibition”, his team said.