A look “at La Robert Doisneau” on the quays of La Rochelle exhibited at the Maritime Museum

UDo not go on a backlight as well as its crew, the gaze turned towards the towers of La Rochelle plunged into the mist. Similarly, The whimsical image. In addition, taken one morning in January 1963, did not escape the eye of Jean Gaillard, who hastened to grasp it with his inseparable bi-objective rolleiflex 6×6 device.

Photographer in the newspaper “Sud Ouest” from 1954 to 1987. Nevertheless, he was the first witness to local news but also countless scenes from daily life. Consequently, An invaluable iconographic heritage of which the Maritime Museum of La Rochelle has made an exhibition. Therefore, by selecting a tiny part of the Gaillard Fund showing the quays of the city, from the auction to La Pallice via the Old Port.

“When we put the nose in the 125. 000 negatives kept at the Michel-Crépeau look “at la robert doisneau” media library, we realized the exceptional wealth of this fund,” says Joffrey Martin, in charge of communication and cultural mediation at the maritime museum. Cécile Raquidel. head of collections, was able to see entire series of dandruff of 12 photos, of which we sometimes only know a photo. The hardest part was to stop looking, it’s inexhaustible! »»

Black and white sets – Look "at la robert doisneau"

From this dive into the archives of Jean Gaillard, 45 shots were brought back to the light. Presented according to three themes (fishing. pleasure, port life), they demonstrate a natural sense of photographic aesthetics, a perfect mastery of lights and contrasts but also, which Rochelais was looking for everything, a “humanist look at the Robert Doisneau”, as described by Joffrey Martin.

The exhibition revives the memory of the trades of yesteryear in black. white sets: the bringing of fishing nets on board the “General-Leclerc”, the sorting of fish at the auction, the look “at la robert doisneau” fairing of ships on the Slipway, this inclined plan built by the Germans in 1942. The landing of the first scallops of the season. in 1961 by the “as tu-suis” Onlookers, like the sardinch stalls at the foot of the chain tower, where the apprentices of the Port-Neuf fishing school in training aboard “Annie”.

A whole world engulfed in the depths of time reappears before the eyes of visitors. that of the divests of the Union of ocean tugs, the crew of the central Société de rescue des Naufragés, the “Manuel-Joël” trawler returning to the port. Classified as the latter to the historic monuments. the tug “Saint-Gilles” arrived in La Rochelle in September 1958 to replace the old “Bassens”. Jean Gaillard is there. of course, as during the stranding of the “nano”, a Spanish freighter, in Sablanceaux in 1963, where during the entrance to “France II” in 1959 after a “tobacco”, look “at la robert doisneau” the twin of “France I” opened today to visitors.

Exhibition “Quai Rochelais, photographs by Jean Gaillard”, until November 2, 2025 at the Maritime Museum.