Jean Pasquero

The Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse houses a large collection of documentary photographs, a significant portion of which comes from the collection of the Pasquero studio, which was active until 1969. Donated by their son René in December 1972, the collection includes the administrative archives, equipment, furniture, and the works of Jean and René Pasquero.

Jean Pasquero was born on August 26, 1866, in Lyon to a modest family. After a long military career during which he learned photography, he opened a studio in 1908 at 54 Rue Saint-Etienne in Lille. Working as a portrait photographer in the fall of 1914, he left Lille for Hesdin, where he opened a branch studio. After the war, upon his return to Lille, he resumed his work in the same studio, assisted by his son René, who would succeed him in 1948.

Jean Pasquero quickly recognized the value of photography for industry and thus began to specialize in this field, whose market was booming. He offered his services to a few industrialists he knew, former military comrades. The technical quality of these prints allowed him to expand his regional client base and secure orders from major Parisian industrial groups with operations in the North, such as Les Grands Moulins de Paris, as well as companies based in Lille, such as Les Cotonnières de Fives and Wauquier.