Support and Thanks

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The Nicéphore Niépce House Museum is a project of the Photography School Spéos

Sponsored since 2012 by the Académie des sciences

With the Support of

Thanks

Thanks to Henriette Niépce, Janine Niépce, Hélène Jaeger-Defaix and Didier Defaix, André Fage, Michel and Danièle Ponsard, John and Huguette Moreau De Melen Jehan, Maurice Bonneviot, Georges Chamfroy, Bernard Dodard, Jean-Claude and Philippe Régnault, as well as Roland Weber, who have enabled the Niépce House to becom the perfect setting for a unique collection in the world.

They made it happen

Pierre-Yves MAHÉ: directs the Maison Nicéphore Niépce project from its beginning in July 1999. Commercial photographer and holder of an executive MBA from HEC, he has also created the school of photography Spéos in 1985, as well as Prophot-Numérique in collaboration with André Lebrun in 1997.
He is the inventor of the Stop-System photographic method and the co-writer with Richard Zakia and Gordon Brown of the book entitled “Beginning Photography using the Stop-System“, published by France Delory editions in 1999 and distributed by Kodak Books in the US.

Jean-Louis MARIGNIER: works as a research scholar in the chemistry and physics laboratory of the CNRS at the University Paris-Sud Orsay, specializing in radiation chemistry and, within that field, the high-speed chemical reactions taking place on a scale of one one-thousandth to one one-millionth of a second. He is in charge of the electron accelerator Elyse, the only one of its kind in Europe. His research also entails the synthesis produced by the radiation of metallic aggregates of a few atoms as well as the explanation of their individual properties. These small particles of metal are not only the basis of chemical catalysts but also of latent images in photography. In this way J.-L. Marignier has come to reconcile his passion for photography with his professional research. Starting in 1989, he became interested in the history of the first photographic processes, notably those achieved by Niépce, which he reproduced in their entirety between 1989 and 1992. He serves as scientific advisor for the museum created in 2003 in the Niépce House in Saint-Loup de Varennes, near Chalon sur Saone. He is the author of about fifty articles and two books on Niépce: “Niépce, l’invention de la photographie” (Belin 1999) and together with M. Bonnet: “Niépce, correspondance et papiers” (Maison Niépce 2003).
A member of the French Academy of Sciences (and a recipient of the Kodak prize in 1991), he also received the Salverte medal from the French Photography Society in the same year.

Manuel BONNET: direct descendant of Nicéphore Niépce, is actor and the co-writer with Jean-Louis Marignier of the book “Niépce, correspondance et papiers” published by Maison Nicéphore Niépce editions in 2003, and the initiator of the celebration in 2007 of the bicentennial of the invention of the Pyreolophore by the Niépce brothers.
In the course of the research made by the Swedish filmmaker Vilgot Sjöman on Alfred Nobel, the important study by Manuel Bonnet on Paul Barbe has found recognition through the creation of files bearing his name in Nobel archives in Stockholm.
He has also contributed to the latest book of the prefect Max Lavigne entitled: “Chantecoq, De la Cité Royale à la Commune républicaine” in 1996.

Michèle LOURSEAU: Chemist at the CNRS (Physics and Chemistry Laboratory-Orsay University). Participated to research which permitted the re-creation of Heliography in 1989, and of the Physautotype in 1992, as well as the first silver chloride negatives on paper as described by Niépce.

Jean-Louis BRULEY: in charge of the off-peak visits of the Nicéphore Niépce House.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering in higher education schools, he has been interested for many years in the motorizations of the future, and was able to reconstruct the Pyreolophore of the Niépce brothers. Co-constructor of the Pyreolophore 2000, he is now working on its optimization.

Nicole CAPOULADE: Niépce’s House national visits manager.