KATE BARRY: My own space

In 1996, Kate Barry began her career as a photographer. Her early experiments focused on her family (her mother Jane Birkin and her half-sisters Lou Doillon and Charlotte Gainsbourg) before the growing number of assignments for fashion and magazines established her reputation. Defying constraints, Kate Barry imposed her unique perspective and developed more personal projects, such as one highlighting the workers at the international Rungis market. However, it is in her landscapes that she best expressed her sensitivity, with stripped-back atmospheres that are poetic and subtle, simultaneously melancholic and oppressive.

Several personalities reflect on the work and personality of Kate Barry: writer Salomé Kiner; photographers Dominique Issermann and Sarah Moon; her close family – Jane Birkin, Lou Doillon, and Charlotte Gainsbourg, as well as her son Roman de Kermadec. Additionally, artists she has photographed – Emmanuelle Béart, Monica Bellucci, Carla Bruni, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Marie Darrieussecq, Catherine Deneuve, Reine Graves, Isabelle Huppert, Sophie Marceau, Chiara Mastroianni, Vanessa Paradis, Melvil Poupaud, Natacha Régnier, Laura Smet, and Elsa Zylberstein – share their relationship with the photographer.

This book, directed by Sylvain Besson and prefaced by Lola Lafon, accompanies the exhibition paying tribute to her at the Nicéphore Niépce Museum; it includes black-and-white and color photographs.