01/02/25 - 18/05/25
dans la salle
Studio Stone
In the artistic effervescence of the 1920s-1930s, between Berlin and Brussels, photographers Cami and Sasha Stone occupy a special place. As their period advertisements make clear, the “Studio Stone” offers advertising, industrial and artistic photography. The Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi and the Amsab-Institute of Social History in Ghent joined their forces to present their photographic work in a historical, artistic and political study.
Studio Stone exhibition provides an exemplary corpus of Cami and Sasha Stone’s diverse practice: architectural and industrial views, nudes, performance photographs, portraits of artistic and political celebrities are brought together and echoed in the publications of the period. The research carried out sheds new light on the practice of these forgotten artists of the interwar photographic milieu, and reveals their work in all its variety.
Studio Stone, or Atelier Stone, was born of the photographic partnership of the couple made up of the Belgian Wilhelmine Camille Honorine Schammelhout, aka Cami Stone, and the Russian Aleksander Serge Steinsapir, aka Sasha Stone. They met in Berlin, where they founded a studio in 1924. Although the Stone name has somewhat faded into oblivion, they were once considered among the finest photographers of their era. Journalists and critics spoke very highly of their photographs, often placing them on a par with or even above peers who have become benchmarks in the history of photography: André Kertész, Germaine Krull, László Moholy-Nagy and even Man Ray, to name but a few.
Collaboration between the musée de la photographie in Charleroi and Amsab– ISG
Studio Stone is the fruit of a collaboration between the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi and Amsab-ISG (Institute of Social History) in Ghent, whose collection includes 170 original prints, posters and other documents by the Stones never shown together before. The exhibited items are also drawn from other collections, the most prominent being that of the Musée de la Photographie, followed by those of several Belgian and German institutions and archive centres. The only monographic exhibition solely devoted to Sasha Stone’s work took place in Germany in 1990. It was also presented at the time at the FOMU in Antwerp. The exhibition Studio Stone is in line with the previous research and promotion on the photographers by browsing their production and by adding unpublished works and documents from their artistic practice.
Amsab-Institute of Social History
Catalogue
The Studio Stone exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring contributions from various specialists in the fields of photography, literature and political history.
Institutions whose works are included in the exhibition
Amsab-ISG, Ghent :
Archives et Musée de la Littérature, Brussels;
Archives of the City of Brussels;
Axel Springer Syndication, Ullstein Bild, Berlin;
Berlinische Galerie, Berlin;
BOZAR, Brussels;
Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris via GrandPalaisRmn photo agency, Paris;
FOMU, Antwerp;
Institut Émile Vandervelde, Brussels;
Institut für Theaterwissenschaft, Berlin;
Landesarchiv, Berlin;
Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône;
Museum Folkwang, Essen via Artothek, Fürth;
Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi;
Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels;
Städel Museum, Frankfurt;
Stadtarchiv, Magdeburg;
Stadtmuseum, Berlin;
UGent, Ghent.
The exhibition and the catalogue were made with the support of the Flemish and French Communities of Belgium.
