Noir & Blanc

The photographic collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, with about six million copies, is one of the richest in the world. The exhibition Noir & Blanc, an aesthetic of photography presents 150 years of the history of black and white photography through the eyes of great names in French and international photography.

The catalogue features a selection of 200 of the exhibition’s masterpieces, classified by creative trends in photography such as the play of shadows and lights, contrasts, or the use of the grayscale palette. It also emphasizes technical aspects of printing: different printing techniques, quality, and variety of photographic papers. A world of high complexity that demonstrates all the power and creative vivacity of black and white.

The book adopts a robust appearance thanks to a hardcover binding with a flat spine covered with Wibalin paper from Winter & Company and decorated with headbands. Inside, the images are printed in CMYK four-color process on Arctic Volume from Arctic Paper, and some inserts, printed with black LED UVI ink on Pergamenata Bianco from Fedrigoni Paper, divide the volume into different themes of photographic creation. The catalogue includes endpapers printed with P2035 and acrylic varnish.