French World War I Photograph Collection

Engaging group of original WWI French propaganda photographs of soldiers, scenery, refugees, and damage from the front. Established in 1915 to counter the German photographic propaganda machine, la Section Photographique De L'Armée (or SPA) was the official photography corps of the French army. Their archives are now part of la Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine (the Library for Contemporary International Documentation). Some these images were included as part of the collections LA GUERRE: DOCUMENTS DE LA SECTION PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DE L'ARMÉE, which were issued in various editions and formats to help drum up support for the war effort. These photographs are in turn fascinating and horrific, taken by skilled photographers and demonstrating professional and artistic framings, composition, and points-of-view. They capture the usual wartime subjects of scenes of the infantry, the cavalry, and artillery, and, curiously, sled dogs lent to France by Alaska to aid in winter operations. These photos are accompanied by more visceral ones of schoolchildren in gas masks, refugees taking shelter in caves, soldiers standing in the wreckage of a Zeppelin, and a trench full of dead German soldiers. There are also artistic images of shelled buildings, including the ruins of Arras Cathedral. Some of the photographs are identified as having been taken in such crucial battles as the Somme, Argonne, Revigny, Marne, and Aisne. Whether this collection was (neatly) disbound from a commercially available deluxe production or was assembled by someone from individually available images is unclear. In either case, it is a moving document by accomplished military photographers. 9.75'' x 12.25''. 36 black-and-white photographs tipped onto heavy grey paper; one photograph tipped onto heavy green paper. [37] leaves total, likely unbound and trimmed from larger album. Many leaves labeled in white album pen. Paper mountings sometimes sunned to edges, with occasional chipped corners and edges. Photographs are beautifully preserved.…