For Marc Riboud, the year 1967 will remain that of “The Girl with the Flower”.
Without knowing it, all his latest reports prepared him for it: his first trip to Vietnam, his article on an American aircraft carrier and also meetings of peace activists in Berlin. It was here in Berlin that he learned that a major mobilization was being prepared for the fall in Washington. He will be at the rendez-vous, in front of the Pentagon, from October 21 in the morning and, when the demonstration begins to disperse, in the evening light, he sees Jan Rose Kasmir arrive, her flower in her hand skillfully approaching bayonets of the very young soldiers who are facing her.
We know what happened next. The photograph that appeared a few days later in Paris Match will become an icon and will go around the world. Marc and Jan Rose, who is still a peace activist, will meet in 1992 and 1999, and on October 21, 2017, fifty years later, the book “La jeune fille à la fleur” will be published. This book, prefaced by Jan Rose Kasmir and accompanied by a text by Philippe Séclier, will show the color version of the famous photo, contact sheet and other images of the demonstration before and after this "decisive moment" .
The publication of the book combined with this exhibition will be a privileged moment to discover and understand the genesis of this emblematic photo, to review and recognize Marc RIBOUD’s eye so engaged in the human.
(Ed du Seuil, collection Fiction & Cie)