After decades overshadowed by his contemporaries, French photographer Roger Schall (1904-1995) is finally returning to the spotlight. Following two exhibitions in Paris and Le Havre dedicated to the legendary ocean liner Normandie, and the publication of his first monograph "Roger Schall, Un Précurseur" (A Precursor) by Le Bec en l'Air editions, the year 2025 promises to trace the career of a photographer as discreet as he was influential. Behind his elegant compositions lies a pioneer of modern photography, witness to both the light moments and dark hours of the 20th century.
Born in 1904 in Nancy into a family of photographers, Roger Schall learned the craft from adolescence under the guidance of his father Émile. He took his first outdoor photographs in Les Sables-d'Olonne, where the family had settled during the war. In 1925, during his military service, he joined the photographic section of the French army in Lebanon. Upon his return, the acquisition of a Leica, then a Rolleiflex, marked a turning point: Roger Schall left the studio to capture reality spontaneously.
Paris became his testing ground. His spontaneous approach, influenced by the New Vision movement born from principles developed by the Bauhaus school, would never leave him. Roger Schall transformed photography into an art form in its own right. Surprising compositional choices and framing transmitted a tender and poetic vision of the world.
Image by image, photography detached itself from its purely representative and documentary scope to become the medium for a vision. Oblique angles, close-ups, and aerial overhead views characterized Roger Schall's perspective. The formal and technical quality of his creations served his message. In moments of lightness as in grave times, Roger Schall remained throughout his life a witness to beauty and simplicity, and a pioneer of humanist photography.
In 1931 in Montmartre, he founded the Schall Brothers studio with his brother Raymond, which would later become the Schall Press agency. Precursors to the model of major international agencies, they collaborated with Vu, Life, and Paris Match to document the interwar period. Schall Press offered photography new recognition and participated in the rise of illustrated press. With Roger behind the lens, Raymond could gradually dedicate himself to editing books and photographic collections, with numerous titles sealing their uninterrupted family collaboration.
From 1932, his photographs caught the attention of the press. Impressed, Lucien Vogel assigned him a report on the construction of the Normandie for Vu magazine. When the shipyard was completed, Roger Schall covered the ocean liner's inaugural crossing in 1935. He was the only accredited photographer on board and shared his cabin with writer Blaise Cendrars. The ship's smokestacks, decorative opulence of this flagship of Art Deco and French luxury, and the joy of life aboard: Roger Schall captured with finesse the opulence and unique atmosphere of this legendary crossing.
As Schall wrote: "Normandie is Paris and France summarized in a floating capital of all our magnificence." Arriving safely in record time, Roger Schall created a New York reportage where he captured the city's lights. In New York, he continued what he had already begun in the light of Parisian street lamps and cabarets, in a vein close to Brassaï.
As one of the most active photographers of the interwar period, Roger Schall navigated the 1930s with elegance and lucidity. Anonymous figures from popular Paris and socialites on vacation were photographed with equal attention. Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, Gabrielle Chanel, Matisse, and Marlene Dietrich: the new artistic guard and celebrities of the era crowded before his lens. With the Schall brothers, fashion left the studios to take to the streets, in Paris and elsewhere. The elegance and freedom of the period was captured from Deauville to Megève, passing through Cap d'Antibes.
In 1937, he photographed the World's Fair, but in 1939, general mobilization closed the doors of the Schall Press agency. Roger Schall did not abandon photography and covered the major events that would define the era: the 1936 Berlin Olympics and Nazi rallies in Nuremberg, gatherings to which Match magazine would devote a special issue.
Roger Schall would be among the very few photographers to immortalize Paris under the Occupation. Often clandestine, this sincere reportage work was devoid of any sensationalism. At Liberation, these photographs took on their full significance: "À Paris sous la botte des nazis" (In Paris Under the Nazi Boot), published in 1944 by Jean Eparvier at Raymond Schall editions, brought together images by Roger Schall, Maurice Jarnoux, Robert Doisneau, and other agency photographers. Prefaced by de Gaulle, the work received wide acclaim.
The shadow of war receded and Paris rediscovered its joy of living. Consumption could once again flourish, and fashion and advertising commissions encouraged photographers to show inventiveness. Roger Schall collaborated with luxury houses. Hermès, Dior, Lanvin, and Van Cleef & Arpels competed for his work. His pure and sophisticated images, always based on carefully crafted lighting effects, brought success to his clients.
To the meticulous compositions of the studio was added the spontaneity of outdoor shoots bathed in natural light. Having become an art photographer, Roger Schall continued to capture the movement of his era, from fashion shows to horse races, not forgetting current events. In 1949, he traveled alongside writer Colette to Morocco to cover the royal wedding of the sons of Pasha El Glaoui. On location, moving away from the palace splendor, Roger Schall immortalized the fortifications and daily life of the Foreign Legion.
With more than 80,000 photographs taken until the 1970s, Roger Schall remains one of the most prolific photographers of his generation. His rich and singular body of work reflects both a humanist and poetic vision of the world. Since 2022, Cécile Schall, Roger Schall's granddaughter, and her great-grandson have been promoting their ancestor's work from a collection that remained within the family. Through the Schall Collection, they are committed to rehabilitating his memory and restoring the place he deserves in photography history, while offering the public the opportunity to acquire prints.
From Paris to Le Havre, the recent exhibition "Revoir Normandie" (Seeing Normandie Again) allowed the public to rediscover these images. A selection of prints and contact sheets is still visible in Le Havre until September 21 at the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art (MuMa) through the exhibition "Paquebots 1913-1942, une esthétique transatlantique" (Ocean Liners 1913-1942, A Transatlantic Aesthetic).
On the occasion of the centenary of the Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (1925), Roger Schall will once again make his name heard. Several of his prints will be exhibited starting October 21, 2025, at the Museum of Decorative Arts for an exhibition that already promises to be an unmissable event of the year's end.
For those interested in exploring more of Roger Schall's work, the monograph "Roger Schall, Un Précurseur" is available from Le Bec en l'Air editions.
