Pierre Brochet

Pierre Brochet, born on December 10, 1922 in Auxerre, spent his childhood on the family property, surrounded by five brothers and sisters. He comes from a wealthy family whose father is a painter and playwright. His brother François is also a famous sculptor from Auxerre. After the baccalaureate, his steps led him to the family nursery, in Vitry near Paris, where his future as a landscape gardener would take shape. An activity that he carried out alongside the practice of photography, his great passion since 1937.
In the landscape of photography in the 1980s, some desires to free themselves from the industry emerged among the practitioners of this art, the quality of the papers no longer being what it used to be. Everyone strives to overcome these disadvantages by looking for other ways, which old literature or course manuals could offer to helpless practitioners: charcoal, platinum, oily inks, gum bichromate, toning, pinhole camera.
The name of Pierre Brochet often appears in the discussions of specialists who wish to approach him to question him about these abandoned processes to which he seems to hold all the keys. In 1981, a retrospective exhibition was organized at the Nicéphore Niépce museum in Chalon-sur-Saône. The following year, Brochet led a coal pulling course. The resurrection of old processes has just begun.
In 1983, he created his heliographic engraving workshop and produced a portfolio of ten plates engraved from the original prints of Charles Nègre.
The Association for Old Photography (APA) was born naturally from this favorable situation. Brochet, as a French specialist in old photographic processes (bichromated gum, carbon or platinum printing), is the founder. Holding his troops in hand, he gives through his numerous courses the taste and the means to revive these little-known techniques.
Pierre Brochet's preference is for heliographic engraving where he is an authority. In addition to his personal images, he knows how to put his talent at the service of the greatest photographers (Salgado, Weiss, Dieuzaide, Nègre, Atget), promoting their works through these prints carried on the most beautiful art papers, a guarantee of an almost palpable, with striking relief, eternal by the quality of the pigments it contains.
“In original engraving or photographic aquatint engraving on copper, manual wiping and crushing by the rollers of the press cause a modification of the plates, and, consequently, of the proofs. Certain numbers will be preferred to others by fans. »
Brochet produced for the APA a portfolio published in seventy copies: Call to sources, a polemical plea for the aid of little-known photographic processes, and comprising thirty photogravure prints made in his workshop, signed by the authors. In 2004, he published with Béatrice Seguin: Mariette in Egypt or the metamorphosis of the ruins.
Pierre Brochet in public collections

• Carnavalet Museum, Paris
• National Library of France, Paris
• Pompidou Center, Paris
• Historical Library of the City of Paris
• Rodin Museum, Paris
• Monet's House, Giverny
• Nicéphore Niepce Museum, Chalon-sur-Saône
• Photo Elysée - Cantonal Museum for Photography, Lausanne
• French Museum of Photography, Bièvres
• Gallery Le Château d'Eau, Toulouse
• National Center of Photography, Paris
• National School of Photography, Arles
• Ile de France Photographic Center
• Heritage Mission, Paris
• National Institute of Geographic and Forestry Information, Saint-Mandé
• Cities of Montpellier, Pithiviers, Saint Florentin, Grasse