Jean Geiser
Jean Geiser | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 7, 1848 La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland |
| Died | September 7, 1923 (aged 75) Algiers, French Algeria |
| Occupation(s) | Photographer and publisher of postcards |
| Years active | 1868 – c. 1915 |
| Known for | Orientalist images and picture postcards of North Africa |
Jean Théophile Geiser (7 April 1848 – 7 September 1923) was a Swiss photographer active in French Algeria, the French protectorate in Morocco and the French protectorate of Tunisia. He is known for his portraits, orientalist images, and 19th-century picture postcards of North Africa.
His images have been collected by the National Library of France, the Getty Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Biography
[edit]Geiser was born in Switzerland, but was professionally active in North Africa. He mainly worked in Algiers, the capital of the former colony of French Algeria, where he grew up. In 1850, his parents had moved to Algiers with Jean and his brothers. After the death of his father, Geiser started as a photographer at the studio of Jean-Baptiste Alary & Geiser, in which his mother Julie was a partner. When his brother James Geiser later joined the business, it was called Geiser Frères. In 1874, he took the studio and the existing photographic stock over as the sole owner, turning it into a successful photo studio in rue Bab Azoun in the new colonial neighbourhood of Algiers.[1] Further, he also ran a branch office in Blida.[2][3]
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Due to his reputation as one of the most important photographers in colonial Algeria, Geiser was awarded gold and silver medals at international exhibitions in Lyon (1872), Vienna (1873), Paris (1856, 1878, 1892) and Amsterdam (1883). When French emperor Napoléon III visited Algiers in 1865, Geiser documented the emperor's journey and major events of his visit as one of the official photographers.[4]: 124 His large photographic output included urban views, landscapes, portraits of colonial personalities, ethnic "types" and "scenes", as well as eroticised images of Algerian women. Geiser reproduced many of these as picture postcards around the beginning of the 20th century, when these photographic formats became more popular than the earlier cartes de visite.[5]
Reception
[edit]Scholarly studies
[edit]In 1981, Algerian writer Malek Alloula discussed Orientalist postcards from colonial Algeria, including many by Geiser, in his book Le Harem colonial, images d’un sous‑érotisme (English translation The Colonial Harem. Images of subconscious eroticism. 1986). Referring to staged photographs of Algerian women, Alloula argued they projected a European fantasy rather than any authentic portrayal.[6][7] In his 2001 illustrated collection Belles Algériennes de Geiser, co-authored with Leyla Belkaïd, Alloula further explored Geiser’s portraits of Algerian women, analyzing their costumes, jewelry and the colonial male gaze behind these staged images.[8]
Further exploring Alloula's critique of Geiser's work, literary scholar Ali Behdad pointed out that in advertisements and photographs, Geiser called himself a peintre photographe (photographic painter), as he intended to convey an artistic sensibility through his pictures. According to Behdad, in his portrayals of Algerian women, partially nude or dressed in traditional costumes, Geiser employed photographic traditions that referred to well-known Orientalist visual tropes.[4]: 124
Ken Jacobson in his 2007 book Odalisques and Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839-1925 suggested that with their existence of more than 50 years, the studios of the Geiser family were the longest-lasting photographic enterprise in colonial Algeria. Further, they were more successful from a commercial and artistic point of view than their competitors.[9]: 201–203
Geiser's work in public collections
[edit]The National Library of France owns 74 photographic prints on albumen paper and photogravures by Jean Geiser and Alary & Geiser, published between 1850 and 1892. Further, the library holds a 1882 general catalogue of Jean Geiser's photographic images.[10] In the Netherlands, the National Maritime Museum also owns photographs by Geiser.[11]
In the United States, the Getty Research Institute's Ken and Jenny Jacobson Orientalist Photography Collection possesses both albumen silver prints, cartes de visite and postcards by Geiser,[12][13] while the Victoria & Albert Museum in London also owns a carte de visite studio photograph.[14]
Gallery
[edit]-
Postcard with city view of Algiers -
Sorbet seller in Algiers, c. 1880 -
Young woman from the South -
Studio portrait of nudes, c. 1900
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See also
[edit]- Orientalism
- Nakedness and colonialism
- French postcard
- Auguste Maure
- François-Edmond Fortier
- Casimir Zagourski
References
[edit]- ^ Crookes, William; Simpson, George Wharton (1884). The Photographic News. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. p. 259.
- ^ "Geiser, Jean". catalogue.bnf.fr. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
- ^ Tréhin, Jean-Yves (21 November 2012). Pouillon, François (ed.). Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française. Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée: Geiser, Jean (in French). Karthala Editions. p. 462. ISBN 978-2-8111-0791-8.
- ^ a b Behdad, Ali (2021). "Le harem pluriel: Jean Geiser and Photographic Orientalism". Yale French Studies (139): 119–133. ISSN 0044-0078. JSTOR 45455816.
- ^ Linton, Anne E.; Rexer, Raisa (1 January 2021). Photography and the Body in Nineteenth-century France. Yale University Press. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-300-25706-9.
- ^ Alloula, Malek (1987). The Colonial Harem. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-1907-4.
- ^ Shloss, Carlos (11 January 1987). "Algeria, Conquered by Postcard". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
- ^ Geiser, Jean; Belkaïd, Leyla; Alloula, Malek (2001). Belles Algériennes de Geiser (in French). Paris: Marval. ISBN 978-2-86234-335-8.
- ^ Jacobson, Ken (2007). Odalisques and Arabesques. Quaritch. ISBN 978-0-9550852-5-3.
- ^ "Geiser, Jean". catalogue.bnf.fr (in French). BnF Catalogue général. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
- ^ "Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam | Collectie online : Home - artist: Geiser, J. (Algiers)". collectie.hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
- ^ "Jean Geiser". primo.getty.edu. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
- ^ "Photographs of the Middle East and North Africa". oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
- ^ Geiser, Jean (1857), Photograph, retrieved 28 June 2025
Further reading
[edit]- Zaragozi, Pierre (2019). Alary & Geiser : La Saga d’Un Studio Photographique, 1850-1883. Paris: Pierre Zaragozi.
- Sentilles, Sarah (2017). "Colonial Postcards and Women as Props for War-Making". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X.
- Humbert, Jean-Charles (2008). Jean Geiser: photographe, éditeur d'art: Alger, 1848-1923, Paris: Ibis press, ISBN 978-2-910728-83-0. (in French)
- Khemir, Mounira (1994). L'Orientalisme : l'Orient des photographes au XIXe siècle (in French). Paris: Centre national de la photographie, Institut du monde arabe. ISBN 978-2-86754-088-2. Archived from the original on 22 August 2022.
External links
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