With this exhibition, the Centre Pompidou presents the first retrospective devoted to the photographers Harry Shunk (1924-2006) and János Kender (1937-2009). Through a selection stemming from more than ten thousand prints from the period, housed in the Kandinsky library and acquired in 2008 thanks to a donation by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, discover a priceless eye-witness account of post-war art.

Harry Shunk and János Kender chronicled the incredible boiling of the art scene of Parisian and New York avant-gardes from the 1950s to the 1980s. First book devoted to this exceptional photographic collection, through more than 800 photographs, several illustrated essays of archival documents, he tells the exceptional story of this body of more than 200,000 vintage prints, contact sheets and negatives.

This pair of photographers rubbed shoulders with avant-garde Paris and New York artists including John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Dan Graham, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeglé, Andy Warhol ...

Their photographs testify to the emergence of new creative gestures, daily workshops, the world of galleries, performances and vernissages that will make dates and pioneering exhibitions. At the same time major documents on the international avant-gardes, they testify to the spirit of an era in full artistic effervescence, these images also put in place particular photographic devices. They capture faces, creative gestures, life in the studio, evenings between artists and collectors in frameworks and approaches that make them photographic works in their own right.

This book is supported by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation