Blog | HPRG The monuments to those fallen in the Great War, an exhibition at the Panthéon until 11th September 2016 – Hotels Paris Rive Gauche Blog


The monuments to those fallen in the Great War, an exhibition at the Panthéon
until 11th September 2016

A big new exhibition has just started at the Panthéon, just seconds from many of our hotels, all about the thousands of war memorials erected to those who died in the First World War, a fascinating and poignant project initiated by French photographer Raymond Depardon.

Here’s all the info.
Exposition Les monuments aux morts de la Grande Guerre 1914-1918 au Panthéon jusqu'au 11 septembre 2016There are actually two complementary photo exhibitions on at the Panthéon right now.

One is by Raymond Depardon – Presence of a lost generation, the other by Léon Gimpel – The kids’ wars. Both examine the war memorials dotted around France.

Depardon’s project does more than just photograph certain sites – he had a letter sent to every one of France’s 36,000 mayors with precise instructions on how to take a photo of their war memorial in order for it to be immortalised and entered into a giant database. Currently, 16,000 monuments have thus been recorded.

The diversity of the memorials is surprising – tombstones, obelisks, ammunition shells, weapon-carrying soldiers, weeping mothers…

The exhibition catalogue, 36,000 scars (96 pages, 130 photos, 19€ here at amazon.fr) shows some, and the database’s exhaustive website completes it.

A touching exhibition that shouldn’t be missed.
Exposition Les monuments aux morts de la Grande Guerre 1914-1918 au Panthéon jusqu'au 11 septembre 2016The exhibition Les monuments aux morts de la Grande Guerre 1914-1918 is at the Panthéon (here) until 11th September 2016

Open every day from 10am-6.30pm

Admission: with the ticket to the monument (8.5€)

Website: www.paris-pantheon.fr