In May 2003, as part of the “Contemporary Foreign Art” program, the Municipal Gallery hosted a significant exhibition: a retrospective of renowned Toulouse photographer Jean D’Yzé. The exhibition was jointly organized by the French Cultural Center in Ukraine and the French Center of Kharkiv.

The exhibition featured approximately 40 black-and-white photographs taken by D’Yzé over the years, including portraits of Charles de Gaulle and Salvador Dalí.

As the gallery director, Tetyana Tumasyan, noted, “This is a unique exhibition made possible by the energy of the staff of the French Center of Kharkiv and the French Embassy in Ukraine.”

This exhibition was part of the exposition that was demonstrated in January 2003 in Paris on the 80th anniversary of J. D’Yzé.

Jean D’Yzé is a photographer considered a classic of photography in France. He was the personal photographer of Charles de Gaulle and the only one to film the liberation of Toulouse.

His first subjects were the faces of friends at parties. In the 1970s, Jean D’Yzé founded the “Meetings in Arles” photography festival.

He opened the first private art photography gallery in Toulouse and also insisted on opening a municipal gallery that hosted exhibitions of 20th-century photographers.

Jean D’Yzé devoted a lot of time and effort to developing the technical side of photography. In 1947, he invented an underwater camera, and in 1951, he opened the first research laboratory in the region that dealt with the problems of color photography. However, he was only interested in color photography for research and commercial purposes. He himself only photographed on black and white film.

He died on September 18, 2003, at the age of 82.

He is currently the only photographer to have received two of the most prestigious French awards – the Niepce Prize in 1955 and the Nadar Prize in 1961.

https://mgallery.kharkov.ua/2003-zhan-d-iezed-retrospektyva/