Other collections
Besides its own collection, the museum preserves and showcases collections and archives to which it has been entrusted.
The De Jongh collection
A family of photographers living in Switzerland since 1793. Francis (1833-1912) settled in Vevey in 1865. His three sons (Edouard, Francis and Auguste), known as the de Jongh brothers, worked notably at the Russian court. Edouard’s son, Francis (1864-1928), studied photography with Paul Nadar in Paris and was interested in photographic techniques such as gum bichromate and greasy ink methods, in a Pictorialist style. His son, Gaston (1888-1973) had a workshop in Rue du Théâtre in Lausanne. He also developed artistic techniques (bromides, greasy inks) and scientific procedures (medical and infrared photography). He specialized in architecture, fashion, advertising and portraits.
The de Jongh collection contains hundreds of thousands of negatives.
The Ella Maillart collection
Ella Maillart was one of the most amazing travellers of the 20th century. An explorer driven by her quest for truth, a photographer out of passion, a writer and journalist by necessity, Ella Maillart (1903-1997) was famous for her many sporting achievements, her travels and books. As early as the 1930s, she had travelled to the most remote areas of the world in conditions of pure adventure.Topics: Travel photography, Central Asia, India, NepalThe Ella Maillart collection includes approximately 11,137 prints and 20,000 negatives.
The book Ella Maillart: Sur les routes de l'Orient is available in the book shop of the museum.
The Gertrud Fehr collection
Gertrude Fehr studied photography in Munich in the 1920s. She opened a studio specializing in portrait and theatre photography, then with her husband, the painter Jules Fehr, she founded the Publiphot School in Paris. It moved to Lausanne in 1940 and is now known as the Ecole Photographique de la Suisse Romande, which went on to be affiliated to the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Vevey. She regularly worked with art magazines, comic books and journals that specialized in photography.
The museum features over 257 prints of hers and thousands of negatives.
The Hans Steiner collection
Hans Steiner, a photographer and reporter, directed his penetrating lens at the daily life of Switzerland and its inhabitants between 1930 and 1960. The quality and diversity of his work make him a major figure of 20th century Swiss photography. The collection owned by the Musée de l'Elysée features thousands of original prints (under the process of inventory), thousands of contact sheets (under the process of inventory), hundreds of slides (under the process of inventory) and 106,000 negatives; in a word, a major collection of photographic media donated by the photographer’s family and his estate.
www.hanssteiner.ch
Iconographic collection.
Topics: Swiss photography, 19th and 20th centuries.
Number of photographic media: Tens of thousands of prints and thousands of negatives.
The Nicolas Bouvier collection (trust)
Writer, poet, photographer and passionate photo researcher, Nicolas Bouvier made his first trip alone to Lapland, at the age of 17. Between 1953 and 1955, he travelled from Yugoslavia to India with his friend Thierry Vernet and the photos of this trip were published in L'Usage du Monde, in 1963, which became a cult book for the new generation of travel writers. Captivated by Japan, he lived there on two occasions in 1956 and between 1964 and 1966. His writing style and his photographs were closely linked and for him photography was ‘another way of writing’. He would later become a ‘seeker of images’, which allowed him to build a very important, high quality iconographic collection.
About 871 original prints and 14,000 negatives are held at the Musée de l'Elysée.
The Rudolf Lehnert & Ernst Landrock collection (trust)
After photography school in Vienna, Rudolf Lehnert travelled and discovered Tunisia for the first time in 1903. Upon his return, he met Ernst Landrock in Switzerland, with whom he created the publishers Lehnert & Landrock of which Ernst Landrock was the manager. They settled in Tunis between 1904 and 1914, when their studio was closed due to the war. Rudolf Lehnert then worked (from 1924 to 1930) in Egypt, photographing among other things objects from the tomb of Tutankhamen. He returned to Tunis in 1930 and continued his portrait work, after breaking away from his partner. In 1939, he retired and remained in Tunisia until the end of his life (1948).
Topics: Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Palestine. Landscape and portrait.
691 original prints and 600 glass plates are part of the collection.
