On 26 May 2020, the French-Polish art historian Isabella Seniuta presented her doctor’s thesis, entitled Histoire du Eye Club. Les valeurs de la photographie. Paris-Londres-New York (1960-1989), at l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. The complex story of how the modern photography market was formed and developed up until 1989.
The text is in French. Non-French speakers are advised to use online translators because it’s a fascinating story. Her thesis maps out the complex story of how the modern photography market was formed and developed up until 1989. It is by no means the whole story of buying, selling and collecting photographs during those years, but it is the story of those who set the agenda of the higher echelons in the photography world, establishing the medium in the art world and ensuring its entry into the major institutions.
The thesis takes its title from “The Eye Club”, the somewhat ironic moniker invented by American historian Eugenia Parry Janis, to designate 12 people who played important roles during the years 1960-1989; André Jammes, Gérard Lévy, Harry Lunn, Pierre Apraxine, Hugues Autexier, François Braunschweig, Françoise Heilbrun, Philippe Néagu, Alain Paviot, Richard Pare, Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Seniuta states, “The chronology begins with André Jammes’ involvement with the world of photography at the turn of the 1960s and ends in 1989, the year of Mapplethorpe’s death.” And later on, “The main question that guided this survey was the following: in what way did ‘The Eye Club’ and its individual actors contribute to the re-evaluation of the commercial, aesthetic, and institutional value of photography between the early 1960s and the late 1980s in Paris, London, and New York.”
Her doctor’s thesis is in French. Non-French speakers are advised to use online translators. The thesis can be downloaded here:
