A rare portrait of the camera-shy Albert Kahn [1]on the balcony of his office in Paris in 1914.SEARCH TURKEY
Main Locations: Adana, Afyon, Ankara, Antakya, Aydin, Bursa, Edirne, Iskenderum, Istanbul, Izmir, Karahisar, Turgutlu, Usak, région de Cilicie
Dates: 1912, 1913, 1919, 1921, 1922-1923, 1929
Archive Type: Autochromes (more than 1 600) and b&w film.
Cameramen: Stéphane Passet, Auguste Léon, Léon Busy, Frédéric Gadmer
Mavi Boncuk |
In 1909 the millionaire French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn[1] embarked on an ambitious project to create a colour photographic record of, and for, the peoples of the world. As an idealist and an internationalist, Kahn believed that he could use the new autochrome process, the world's first user-friendly, true-colour photographic system, to promote cross-cultural peace and understanding. At the start of 1929 Kahn was still one of the richest men in Europe. Later that year the Wall Street Crash reduced his financial empire to rubble and in 1931 he was forced to bring his project to an end. Kahn died in 1940. His legacy, still kept at the Musée Albert-Kahn in the grounds of his estate near Paris, is now considered to be the most important collection of early colour photographs in the world. SOURCE
[1] Albert Kahn (3 March 1860 - 14 November 1940) was a French banker and philanthropist, known for initiating The Archives of the Planet, a vast photographical project.
He was born Abraham Kahn in Marmoutier, Bas-Rhin, France on 3 March 1860, the eldest of four children of Louis Kahn, a Jewish cattle dealer and Babette Kahn (née Bloch), an uneducated homebound mother. Kahn's mother died when he was ten years old, and, following the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871, the Kahn family moved to Saint-Mihiel in north-eastern France in 1872 where he continued his studies at the Collège de Saverne from 1873 to 1876. In 1879. Kahn became a bank clerk in Paris, but studied for a degree in the evenings. His tutor was Henri Bergson, who became his lifelong friend. He graduated in 1881 and continued to mix in intellectual circles, making friends with Auguste Rodin and Mathurin Méheut. In 1892 Kahn became a principal associate of the Goudchaux Bank, which was then regarded as one of most important financial houses of Europe. He also promoted higher education through travelling scholarships.
In 1909, Kahn travelled with his chauffeur and photographer, Alfred Dutertre to Japan on business and returned with many photographs of the journey. This prompted him to begin a project collecting a photographic record of the entire Earth. He appointed Jean Brunhes as the project director, and sent photographers to every continent to record images of the planet using the first practical medium for colour photography, Autochrome plates, and early cinematography. Spanning 22 years, it resulted in a collection of 72,000 colour photographs and 183,000 meters of film.
The economic crisis of the Great Depression ruined Kahn and put an end to his project. Kahn died at Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France on 14 November 1940 during the Nazi occupation of France.
Albert Kahn Links
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