“Mother and Child” et les frontières de la photolittérature pour la jeunesse

 

Pour Mother and Child, la photographe  Nell Dorr propose ses visions de l’enfance, dans un ouvrage composé de poèmes et de photographies d’enfants en regard, paru en 1954, chez Harper & Brothers, à New York.

Elle photographie ses enfants, petits-enfants et arrière petits-enfants, dans de jolis décors champêtres ou marins. Ses photographies exaltent les beautés de la nature et de la vie.

Bien que cet ouvrage soit classé dans la catégorie des livres pour enfants,  la question se pose du destinataire de ce livre, comme pour les Enfants d’Ergy Landau ou de Jaboune en France, et ceux d’Elizabeth Brownell aux U.S.A. Il s’agit plutôt d’un livre sur l’enfance, avec des photographies d’enfants. Où s’arrête donc le territoire de la photolittérature pour la jeunesse ?

Sur le site du Center for Creative photography de New York :

“Ohio-born Nell Dorr grew up surrounded by photography; her father, John Jacob Becker, co-founded one of the largest and most respected photography studios of the late nineteenth century. She was interested in her father’s business at a young age but did not become a professional photographer until after she had moved to Florida with her husband and children in 1923. Dorr opened a portrait photography studio in Miami and worked on her own photographic projects. She was particularly interested in photomurals, and the International Gallery in New York City showed her pioneering efforts in this medium in 1932. In New York, Dorr met Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz, as well as her second husband, John Van Nostrand Dorr, a chemical engineer, metallurgist, and inventor. She published books of her photographs, including In a Blue Moon (1939), Mother and Child (1934), and Of Night and Day (1968). After the death of her youngest daughter in 1954, Dorr devoted herself to photographing mothers and children.
Dorr believed that terror and misery were already abundantly documented in American culture and thus committed herself to eliciting beauty in her photographs. Her images evoke the dreamy atmosphere of reminiscence. ”

Quelques photographies extraites du livre sur ce site : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRP4r-daF8A

 

 

 

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