Photographers' archive collections

One of the Institut pour la photographie’s main missions is to preserve, study, and promote the photographic heritage. 

It was in this context that the Institut pour la photographie acquired the archives of photographers Bettina Rheims, Jean-Louis Schoellkopf, and Agnès Varda in 2021. In June 2026, a fourth collection will be added to the Institut pour la photographie’s archives: that of photographer and filmmaker Pierre Zucca.

The photographic collections held by the Institut pour la photographie reflect the diversity of photography’s fields of activity, as expressed through distinctly different aesthetic approaches, as well as its technical evolution from film to digital. More broadly, these collections represent a valuable resource for the critical study of our society from the 1940s to the present day.

At the same time, the Institut pour la photographie’s library is one of the world’s top ten resources on the history of photographic publishing, thanks to the donation and bequest of more than 25,000 books from Lucien Birgé’s private collection.