France is preparing the most ambitious celebration of photography ever staged, with a year-long bicentenary programme running from September 2026 to September 2027 to mark two centuries since the medium's invention.
The French Ministry of Culture has unveiled plans to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first permanent photo, taken by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826-1827 at his estate in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, Burgundy. That pioneering image used a bitumen-coated pewter plate and required an eight-hour exposure in bright sunshine to capture a simple courtyard scene. (Read more about it in our article, When was photography invented?).
Minister of culture Rachida Dati has called for "a great, popular and festive celebration" that will honour photography's evolution "from daguerreotypes to selfies" and recognize its profound impact on contemporary life, especially among younger generations.
Flagship exhibitions
The bicentenary will launch in autumn 2026 with a major exhibition-manifesto at the Grand Palais in Paris, developed in partnership with the Centre Pompidou and GrandPalaisRMN. This opening exhibition aims to showcase the breadth and quality of France's national photographic collections, which rank among the world's finest.
A dedicated historical exhibition focusing on Niépce himself will be presented at the Nicéphore Niépce museum in Chalon-sur-Saône, developed in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The exhibition will explore the inventor's pioneering work with his "héliographie" process and the technical breakthroughs that made permanent photography possible.
The National Centre for Visual Arts is leading a major commission titled Reinventing photography, which will select 15 photographers to create new work exploring the medium's past, present and future. The commissioned projects will question photography "in all its dimensions, from its primitive times to the most contemporary experiments," the ministry says.
Key themes
A scientific committee led by Dominique de Font-Reaulx, general curator at the Louvre Museum, is overseeing the bicentenary's artistic and scholarly programme. They've outlined four key themes: photography as recorder of shared history, both public and intimate; its transformation of our relationship with reality through accuracy and distortion; its continuous reinvention across artistic, scientific, social and political applications; and its capacity to explore distant places and scales.
While centered in France, the bicentenary is inviting international participation through a labeling system for relevant projects worldwide. Organizations and photographers globally can have exhibitions, publications, and events recognized as part of the celebrations, gaining visibility through an interactive map and official communications.
The scientific committee stated: "The celebration of the first photograph is a wonderful opportunity to retrace the major stages in the evolution of this art – from Niépce's heliography to digital images – to honor its creators, from 1826 to today, but also to bring us together around common and singular images."
Why this matters
Niépce's original photograph captured a simple view that took eight hours to expose. Today, billions of photographs are made every day on devices that fit in a pocket. Yet the fundamental act – using light to create a permanent record of reality – remains unchanged.
France's bicentenary celebrations recognize both photography's revolutionary origins and its ongoing transformation, from a complex chemical process requiring specialized knowledge to what the ministry describes as "one of the most democratic artistic expressions."
With France's major photographic collections, internationally renowned festivals, and network of specialized venues, the country remains one of photography's key centers. The bicentenary offers an opportunity to examine not just where photography has been, but where it's heading in an age of digital manipulation and artificial intelligence.
Further details of specific exhibitions and events will be announced at a press conference in spring 2025.
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