Marc Riboud – 1923-2016

The photographer Marc Riboud died this summer at a very respectable 93. By Asia Hands Riboud will be best remembered for his Asian photography – grouped together partly in his books The Three Banners of China, Face of North Vietnam, Visions of China, and In China. Riboud was amazing for many reasons (not least he was a member of the French Resistance in WW2). He didn’t really start seriously taking pictures until the 1950s – previously he worked in a Lyon factory. He first went to China in 1957 and then returned later, during the Cultural Revolution. In 1971 John Kenneth Galbraith visited China. He published a book about his impressions and experiences on that trip, A China Passage, at that amazing time in the country’s history, and used Riboud’s photographs. The book and the photographs stand as rare eye witness testimonies to life in China in the early 1970s – still in the Cultural Revolution and the grip of Mao’s madness.

the pictures below are from that 1971 trip…

Great Wall

Hutongs close to Tiananmen Square (no longer there of course)

Peking Department Store

The HSBC lions on the Bund, Shanghai

Yarn delivery – Shanghai