Marc Riboud (French:[ʁibu]; 24 June 1923 – 30 August 2016) was a French photographer, best known for his extensive reports on the Far East: The Three Banners of China, Face of North Vietnam, Visions of China, and In China.
Until 1951 Riboud worked as an engineer in Lyon factories, but took a week-long picture-taking vacation, inspiring him to become a photographer.[1] He moved to Paris where he met Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and David Seymour, the founders of Magnum Photos. By 1953 he was a member of the organization. His ability to capture fleeting moments in life through powerful compositions was already apparent, and this skill was to serve him well for decades to come.
Over the next several decades, Riboud traveled around the world. In 1957, he was one of the first European photographers to go to China, and in 1968, 1972, and 1976, Riboud made several reportages on North Vietnam. Later he traveled all over the world, but mostly in Asia, Africa, the U.S. and Japan. Riboud has been witness to the atrocities of war (photographing from both the Vietnam and the American sides of the Vietnam War), and the apparent degradation of a culture repressed from within (China during the years of chairman Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution). In contrast, he has captured the graces of daily life, set in sun-drenched facets of the globe (Fès, Angkor, Acapulco, Niger, Bénarès, Shaanxi), and the lyricism of child's play in everyday Paris. In 1979 Riboud left the Magnum agency.
One of Riboud's best known images is Eiffel Tower Painter, taken in Paris in 1953. It depicts a man painting the tower, posed like a dancer, perched between the metal armature of the tower. Below him, Paris emerges from the photographic haze. Lone figures appear frequently in Riboud's images. In Ankara, a central figure is silhouetted against an industrial background, whereas in France, a man lies in a field. The vertical composition emphasizes the landscape, the trees, sky, water and blowing grass, all of which surround but do not overpower the human element.
An image taken by Riboud on 21 October 1967, entitled "The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet," is among the most celebrated anti-war pictures. Shot in Washington, D.C. where thousands of anti-war activists had gathered in front of the Pentagon to protest against America's involvement in Vietnam, the picture shows a young girl, Jan Rose Kasmir, with a flower in her hands and a kindly gaze in her eyes, standing in front of several rifle-wielding soldiers stationed to block the protesters. Riboud said of the photo, "She was just talking, trying to catch the eye of the soldiers, maybe trying to have a dialogue with them. I had the feeling the soldiers were more afraid of her than she was of the bayonets."[3][4]
In contrast to the images in his photo essay, A Journey to North Vietnam (1969), Riboud says in the accompanying interview:
"My impression is that the country's leaders will not allow the slightest relaxation of the population at large [...] it is almost as if [...] they are anxious to forestall the great unknown – peace."[5] In the same Newsweek article, he expanded further in his observations on life in North Vietnam:
I was astonished, for example, at the decidedly gay atmosphere in Hanoi's Reunification Park on a Sunday afternoon [...] I honestly did not have the impression they were discussing socialism or the 'American aggressors' [...] I saw quite a few patriotic posters crudely 'improved' with erotic graffiti and sketches.[5]
There is a divide between what is photographed (or published) and what Riboud had to say by way of his interview. Commenting on this in 1970, the author Geoffrey Wolff wrote:
Riboud's photographs illustrate the proposition. The French photographer has been to North Vietnam twice [...] and he is most friendly, on the evidence of his pictures, to the people and the institutions he found there. His photographs are of happy faces,[...] An Air Force ace illustrates how he shot the American "air pirates" from the sky [...] Who knows the truth about these places?[6]
American, revolutionary political Rap Metal band, Rage Against the Machine used two of Riboud's photographs for their second single "Bullet in the Head". Both photographs carry strong political and social messages, but are very different. The front cover is a picture of American school children pledging allegiance to the 'flag' (Stars and Stripes) in a classroom; the back cover picture, is of a young (probably Vietnamese) boy, who is pointing a pistol, while soldiers stand on parade in the background.[7] It is unclear who or what the boy is aiming at and whether the gun is real or a toy.
Marriage and family
In 1961 Riboud married the American sculptor Barbara Chase, who was living in Paris.[8] They had two children.[8] She became well known for her novel, Sally Hemings (1979), which earned critical acclaim and became a bestseller. They divorced before 1981.
He later married Catherine Chaine, a journalist and author.
Riboud died in Paris on 30 August 2016, at the age of 93.[9][10]
Publications
Women of Japan. Andre Deutch, 1959.
Visions of China, Photographs 1957–1980. Pantheon Books, 1981. ISBN978-0-394-74840-5
