English

Albert Kahn, museum and gardens

10-14, rue du Port

92100 Boulogne-Billancourt

Tel: (33) 1 55 19 28 00

www.albert-kahn.fr/bretagne

@ : museealbertkahn@cg92.fr

Opening days and times

From Tuesday to Sunday : 11a.m. to 6 p.m. (7 p.m. from May 1^st till September 30th )

Last entrance 30 min. before closing.

Closed every Mondays, including public holidays.

Annual closure during Christmas and New Year holidays.

Getting there

Métro: Boulogne – Pont de Saint-Cloud (Line 10 terminus).

Bus: 52, 72, 126, 160, 175, 460, 467 (Rhin et Danube stop)

Tram: Line T2, alight at Parc de Saint-Cloud stop.

Admission fees

1,50 €

Free for children under 12.

Free for all visitors on the first Sunday of every month.

 Annual pass : 15 €

Schools : 0.75 € per chil

There are no museum-guided tours except for groups on reservation.

Albert Kahn was born in March 1860 in the Bas-Rhin département in Eastern France. His family belonged to a small community of Jewish tradespeople. His tenth year was marked by the Franco-Prussian war and the death of his mother. After Alsace-Lorraine was annexed to the German Empire, his family opted to retain its French nationality.

At the age of sixteen, he went to Paris, working as a junior clerk in the Goudchaux Frères bank. In parallel to his day job, he passed two Baccalauréats aided by a tutor a year older than himself, the philosopher Henri Bergson, then a student at the elite Ecole Normale Supérieure. At the bank, his professional skills (and in particular his ability to pick stocks that were about to rise) earned him successive promotions. After becoming a senior partner he was able to set up his own bank in 1898.

Albert Kahn was convinced that a knowledge of foreign societies encourages respect and peaceful relations among peoples. From 1898 onwards, armed with the necessary financial resources, he set up the series of bursaries he called Autour du Monde – "Around the World" – and founded the Chair of Human Geography at the Collège de France, plus the first centre for preventive medicine, a biology laboratory and two forums for discussion and research : the Société Autour du Monde, and the National Committee for Social and Political Studies.

In addition, realising that his era was to witness great changes, he began to build up an iconographic memory of societies, environments and lifestyles – many of them traditional – around the world. From 1909 to 1931, he commissioned photographers and film cameramen to record life in over 50 countries. The images were held in the Archive of the Planet, a collection of 180,000 metres of b/w film and more than 72,000 autochrome plates, the first industrial process for true colour photography, of which the museum now has the largest collection in the world.

The banker's ideal of cultural diversity is also visible in his gardens at Boulogne. Comprising horticultural models from a range of countries they are as much a part of his achievements as his various foundations.

The stock market crash of October 1929 dealt a fatal blow to his wealth and his plans. His property was confiscated and in 1936, the Prefecture of the Seine acquired the Boulogne estate, although Albert Kahn was allowed the use of it until his death in November 1940.

In 1968, the Conseil general of Hauts-de-Seine was granted ownership of the site and collections.

From 1986, the 4-hectares gardens were restored and a museum was set up by the Conseil general des Hauts-de-Seine to exhibit the collection via regular temporary exhibitions.

Since that time, annual public exhibitions highlighting a part of the collection have been organised.

Since 2006, visitors have been able to view over 1,500 images, 123 films and 80 slideshows via public access computer terminals : virtual gallery (Fakir). Three main navigation themes are on offer: an illustrated biography of Albert Kahn, a visit to the museum gardens, and an interactive world map, used as the starting point for viewing images from some of the 50 countries covered by Albert Kahn's reporters. In the coming years, the entire collection will be made available for consultation.

The four hectares (eight acres) of gardens, painstakingly restored and maintained in the spirit of their creator, show the different aspects of the art of gardening in the early 20^th century.

Once passed doors of the exhibition gallery, visitors are in the Japanese parts: the old village, filled with temples, lanterns, stone paths edged, and the contemporary garden, a tribute to Albert Kahn’s life, with azaleas, and streams crossed by stone or timber bridges. Bamboo gates mark the entrance to formal French gardens, on the left, with a greenhouse, orchard, and rose garden, and to English garden, on the right (with green grass, false rock and cottage). Then, a forest of Blue Atlas cedars and Colorado spruces, whose low branches screen a small lily pond surrounded by a wild meadow. After crossing the meadow and passing through a group of slender birches, paths lead to a vast forest of conifers planted on steep, rocky soil, a reproduction of the Vosges Mountains near Kahn birthplace. Before 1936, when it opened to the public, this space devoted to world peace was visited only by dignitaries including various poets, philosophers (as Tagore) and Kings.

A major reorganisation of the museum into three sections (images, gardens and Japan) is scheduled in the years ahead.

Discover the Archive of the Planet by clicking on a continent (include France) then a Nation.

Albert Kahn built up an iconographic memory of societies, environments and lifestyles – many of them traditional – around the world. From 1909 to 1931, he commissioned photographers and film cameramen to record life in over 50 countries. The images were held in the Archive of the Planet, a collection of 180,000 metres of b/w film and more than 72,000 autochrome plates, of which the Albert Kahn museum now has the largest collection in the world.

Hundreds of autochromes and few movies are available.

Autochrome was the first industrial process for true colour photography. When the Lumière brothers launched it commercially in June 1907, it was a photograhic revolution - black and white came to life in colour. Autochromes consist of fine layers of microscopic grains of potato starch – dyed either red-orange, green or violet blue – combined with black carbon particles, spread over a glass plate where it is combined with a black and white photographic emulsion. All colours can be reproduced from three primary colours.

Click below to access the map.

A large-scale exhibition on Brittany entitled Brittany : Travel in colour, Autochrome photographs 1907-1929.

The exhibition is open from 20 October 2009 to 4 July 2010.

Tuesday – Sunday 11am to 6pm (7pm in summer)

Autochrome was the first industrial process for true colour photography. When the Lumière brothers launched it commercially in June 1907, it was a photograhic revolution - black and white came to life in colour. In order to test out autochrome plates, photographers travelled to Brittany, an ideal location for recording authentic everyday life, locals in typical costume, the changing light on sea and landscapes, religious ceremonies or megaliths at sunset, all passionate subjects for study.

Sensitive plates. Autochromes consist of fine layers of microscopic grains of potato starch – dyed either red-orange, green or violet blue – combined with black carbon particles, spread over a glass plate where it is combined with a black and white photographic emulsion. All colours can be reproduced from three primary colours. The exhibition begins with a step by step explanation into the autochrome process techniques using original plates, films, two microscopes, small-scale models and an animated computer programme.

The autochromists. Three kinds of photographers are presented in the exhibition two amateurs, two professionnals and three Operators of the Archives of the Planet. Colour allowed them to show photographic images that were more faithful than ever before to their original subjects and opened the way for a whole new range of aesthetic perspectives in photography. Each group marks a difference in the choice of subjects, points of view, centring, light processing and the mastering of chromatic ratios.

The Grande Troménie. Between 14 and 21 July 1929, two the Archives of the Planet operators, Roger Dumas and Camille Sauvageot, travelled to Locronan (Finistère) in order to photograph and film the famous «Grande Troménie» procession, a unique pilgrimage in the honour of Saint Ronan, which has taken place every six years since time immemorial. Using the new technology they were able to record both the colour and the movement of the ritual. Besides b/w films, we can see rare Keller-Dorian coloured films. Colour and action together, Albert Kahn’s dream to duplicate the reality of the world.

In the fields. Inland, the photographers from the the Archives of the Planet discovered a countryside marked by what Jean Brunhes described as the «subordination of the plant world to human will.» For the other photographers, it served a more picturesque purpose. The villagers, often dressed up for the camera in their very finest costumes, allowed them to compose classic autochromes. The autochromists also took great care to consider the place of colour in their compositions.

By the shore. At the beginning of the 20^th century, Britanny for many people conjured up ideas of a certain kind of «primitivism». For the most part, the autochromists followed itineraries recommended in tourist guidebooks. The region’s coastline is therefore well documented in their images, with each photographer seeming to satisfy his expectations, whether they be for adventure and souvenirs or of a more ethnographic or geographic nature

Contemporary colours. All of the autochromists (amateurs, professionals or Albert Kahn’s operators), in one way or another, were very much aware of the present. At the turning point between the 19th and 20th centuries, the pictures of Brittany clearly bore the marks of the transformations taking place at that time. Towns typify places where modernisation was taking root in traditionally historical areas. As for the ports, they not only provided precious opportunities to document industrial activity. They also allowed the photographers to compose remarkable images featuring the colourful geometric forms of ships’ hulls, sails and boys against backgrounds of rigging and constantly changing skies.

Imaginations. The exhibition ends with autochromes taken by Jules Gervais-Courtellemont who endeavoured to capture evocative atmospheres, for exemple, the Bois d’Amour in Pont-Aven or images of mysterious megaliths photographed at sundown. His autochromes tapped into the collective imagination linked to these places, conjuring up both ideas of legends and an invitation to visit the sites.

The exhibition was originally designed for the Champs Libres (Rennes Metropole) by the association Mémoire Photographique en Bretagne in Rennes in partnership with the Albert Kahn Museum - the Department of Hauts-de-Seine and the Musée de Bretagne (Rennes), with the assistance of the Robert-Lynen Film Library - the Mairie de Paris and the Société Française de Photographie.

The new adapted version at the Albert-Kahn Museum was created with the assistance of Mme Merle des Isles and the Conseil général de la Manche.

The exhibition Brittany : Travel in colour at the Albert Kahn museum is an adaptation of a original exhibition which was displayed in 2007 at the Champs Libres in Rennes, and uin 2009 at the Port Musée in Douarnenez.