Marc Riboud: Memories of China
Leica Gallery Shanghai Westbund Central inaugurates its exhibition programme with Memories of China, a major presentation dedicated to Marc Riboud and to the French photographer’s enduring relationship with the country.
Riboud first travelled to China in 1957 and returned many times over the following decades, photographing cities, rural communities and everyday life during a period of extraordinary social and economic transformation. Rather than concentrating on dramatic events, he was drawn to gestures, encounters and ordinary moments, observing the people around him with curiosity and discretion. The exhibition brings together 30 original photographs spanning more than five decades. Among them are some of Riboud’s best known images, including The Painter on the Eiffel Tower and Antique Shop Window in Liulichang, alongside photographs made in China during the 1990s and 2000s.
Across the exhibition, historical change is often registered through the details of daily life. Riboud photographed streets, workplaces, landscapes and individuals, balancing the immediacy of photojournalism with a precise sense of composition. His images offer a portrait of China in constant transition while remaining closely focused on the people living through those changes. Riboud’s connection with China became one of the central threads of his career. Beginning with his first journey in 1957, his repeated visits created a visual record that extended across generations, from the early years of the People’s Republic to the rapid modernisation of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
About the Author
Marc Riboud was born in Saint Genis Laval, near Lyon, in 1923. He took his first photographs as a teenager and initially trained as an engineer at the École Centrale de Lyon before deciding to devote himself to photography.
In 1953, his photograph of a painter working high above Paris on the Eiffel Tower was published in Life magazine and became one of his most celebrated images. That same period brought him into contact with Henri Cartier Bresson and Robert Capa, who invited him to join Magnum Photos. Riboud travelled extensively throughout his career, working across
Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. He first visited China in 1957, becoming one of the relatively few Western photographers able to work in the country at the time. He returned repeatedly over the following five decades, creating an extensive photographic record of Chinese society and its transformation. His work is characterised by an understated humanism, a strong sense of geometry and an ability to find moments of grace and ambiguity within everyday life. Among his most recognised photographs are The Painter on the Eiffel Tower from 1953 and his 1967 image of Jan Rose Kasmir confronting National Guardsmen during an anti Vietnam War demonstration in Washington.
Marc Riboud died in Paris in 2016. His archive is preserved by the Fonds Marc Riboud at the Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet in Paris.
Marc Riboud: Memories of China
September 12 to December 3, 2026
Leica Gallery Shanghai Westbund Central – Shanghai, China
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