Gérard Rondeau was born in Chalons-en-Champagne on 10 April in 1953, in a family of teachers. He studied in Reims and in the 1970s he worked at the Alliance Française in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The discovery of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s book about the USSR, in the library of the Alliance, was a revelation for him. As soon as he was back in Champagne, he launched his career as a self-taught photographer. or over more than twenty years, he maintained a close partnership with the newspaper Le Monde, producing a large portrait collection of painters and contemporary writers, with lasting friendships emerging from those interactions. He photographed the painter Paul Rebeyrolle in action and traveled the battlefields of the First World War with the novelist Yves Gibeau. He toured some of the most famous music venues in the world with the Ysaÿe Quartet. He also proceeded with the realization of an inventory of the streets that marked his life with the help of the writer Bernard Franck, as well as went up the Marne with Jean-Paul Kauffman.
Gérard Rondeau, being a tireless journeyer, constantly traveled the world but still remained strongly attached to his native Champagne, where he chose to live, continuously re-examining its landscapes and its people. He re-discovered the hidden treasures of the Reims Cathedral. He explored museums behind the scenes for over twenty years; he covered the life of Sarajevo under siege, drew up a portrait of contemporary Morocco in the dialogue above time with Delacroix’s paintings and drawings, as well as uncovered the hidden face of the Tour de France. He accompanied Médecins du Monde’s missions throughout the world for over fifteen years. In his career, he took photographs of celebrities including Iggy Pop, Clint Eastwood, Peter Falk, Christian Louboutin, Serge Reggiani, Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Geraldine Chaplin, Isabella Rossellini, Paul Bowles, Alain Bashung, Pierre Soulages, Jacques Derrida and Jim Jarmusch.
In the period from 1992 to 1996, Gérard Rondeau visited the besieged city of Sarajevo many times, the European victim of the last war trenches of the last century. There he made friends, including Zlatko Dizdarević, the then editor of the Oslobodjenje war editorial office. Together, they would, among other things, publish the book ‘Sarajevo, Silence and Nothing Around’, published by Actes Sud. With constant departures and arrivals between Sarajevo and Eastern France, in the true geography of war traces, but also the time between 1914-1918 and 1992-1996, this unique journey of Gérard Rondeau is based on his simultaneous visits to the sites of the First World War and the last, Bosnian one.
Gérard Rondeau presented numerous solo shows in institutions such as the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris, The National Gallery in Jakarta, La Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Luz Festival in Buenos-Aires, the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, and the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. He invented specific photo series in Istanbul, New York, Rome and Sarajevo.
Whether exploring the wings of a museum, chronicling besieged Sarajevo, discovering the lives of volunteers for Médecins du Monde, or following the Tour de France, Gérard Rondeau always knows how to choose an original angle that escapes stereotypes and clichés. For twenty years, he has amassed a considerable portrait collection of painters and contemporary writers, particularly one of his friend Paul Rebeyrolle long before the author was widely received or acknowledged. Eclectic, yet nevertheless precise in his projects, Rondeau develops a curious type of photography. It is sensible, demanding, and cultivated; not merely illustrative.
GÉRARD RONDEAU was born 10 April 1953 in Chalons-en-Champagne, France.
He died of cancer on 13 September 2016, at the Henri Mondor Hospital in Créteil, Val-de-Marne, France.
Special thanks to Zlatko Dizdarević
Translated by Mustafa Čorbo
Music used: ‘Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 5’
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