I have become utterly fascinated with a man.
A French banker called Albert Kahn.
Born in rural France in 1860, to a cattle herder and a housebound, uneducated mother, in later life he became one of the most important men in finance, and one of the wealthiest in France. He even founded his own investment bank in 1898, “La Banque Kahn”.
A truly “self made man”.
As worthy of admiration as this is, it is not the reason for my fascination.
In 1909 Kahn travelled to Japan on business (along with his driver and photographer), returning with a collection of photos. This sparked a lifelong fascination with documenting the world, and educating those who may never travel past their own boarders.
He initiated a project called “Les Archives de la Planète”; The Archives of The Planet. Sending photographers to all corners of the earth, to document whatever they found. This was during the very, very early days of colour photography (the vast majority of the world would never have seen a camera before) so rather than film, the photographers used Autochrome Plates, glass plates which act as negatives.
In 22 years they captured and collected 72,000 photographs, from all over the world.
Many of these are on display at the Albert Kahn Museum, in the outskirts of Paris.
Displayed on their glass plates, lit by a backlight, I thought I’d bring you along to see some of the work.
Somewhat unforgivably, I left my notebook on the Eurostar, along with all of the captions for each shot.
So I’m afraid you’ll have to use your imagination for most of these.
Imagine you’re not the worldly creature you are, that you’ve never left home, never seen the world and never seen a colour photograph.
These were all taken at the Kahn estate, in Southern France.
^ My pick of the bunch. What a shot!
The colour, life and vibrancy in each of the photos really blew me away.
Can you even imagine seeing something like this next shot for the first time?
I almost envy them for being able to experience these snapshots of new cultures with virgin eyes.
Outside, the museum maintains the Kahn gardens.
First you enter the Japanese Garden he created in 1895.
An utterly serene, and peaceful space.
Even on a busy Sunday in Paris, all you hear is the gentle running water and rustling leaves.
Stepping through an archway, you find yourself in a manicured English Garden.
Complete with fruit orchard and every type of rose you can imagine.
In the centre, there’s a a green house filled with palms and bonsai trees.
Kahn created education scholarships around the globe, campaigned for peace, created The National Emergency Committee – to help victims of The Great War, founded medicine and biology centres, and eventually bankrupted himself in his quest to save the world.
In 1940, 80 year old Albert Kahn died at his home in Boulogne.
His refusal to ever speak about himself, and utter humility means that very little is known of him, and biographers have struggled to find out much at all about this fascinating man.
The Albert Kahn Museum deserves a trip, it takes about 20mins from the centre of Paris in a car, or you could take the metro.
If that sounds a bit far and you’re as hooked as I am, I’ve popped some of the BBC docs on Kahn below. Come back later, with a cuppa, and give them a go.
