page_title: Frères Séeberger
section_title: The Séebergers
hierarchical_section_title: Frères Séeberger / The Séebergers
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Henri, Jules et Louis Séeberger vers 1900* © Séeberger frères / Centre des monuments nationaux
context_page_description: The Séeberger dynasty, known as the Frères Séeberger; three brothers Jules, Henri and Louis' sons Jean and Albert, pioneered fashion photography in France, beginning in the twentieth century.
context_section_description: A family devoted to the genre was the Séeberger dynasty over two generations. Three brothers Jules (1872–1932), Louis (1874-1946) and Henri (1876-1956) were born to Jean-Baptiste, a Bavarian tradesman who had migrated to France in 1870, and their mother Louise, a widow from Lyon with a daughter Félicie. The second generation, sons of Louis, brothers Jean (1910-1979) and Albert (1914-1999) also inherited a love of photography. Together, their work spans most of the twentieth century and was devoted to elegance and fashion.
  The brothers went to Paris for secondary education at the Lycée Rollin where Louis was awarded first prize for drawing. They completed their schooling at the municipal art school Palissy, before Jules and Louis start their training as designers of fabric at the atelier of J. Souchon, a specialist in “high innovations, gowns, ribbons, damask linens, Jacqaurd fabrics and drafting.”  From thence came an interest, and much inside knowledge of, fashion.
  While the three brothers worked as fabric designers, it was in 1891 that Jules started in evening drawing classes and also picked up photography. After a move to 39 rue Lafayette in the 10th Arr., Louis won the Danton Jeune prize dedicated to a disadvantaged child at the Ville de Paris art school, while Jules won a travel grant to Normandy. In the meantime, the youngest, Henri, enrolled at a school for applied art and also won prizes. After the death of their father in 1894 the family moved to the quieter 13 rue Fénelon.
  In 1899 Jules submitted photographs to various contests, an interest soon shared by his brothers, winning prizes in amateur competitions organised by the newspaper Lectures Pour Tous. He experimented with bromoil, especially the Rawlins process. Jules took documentary photography awards in 1903 and 1904 for pictures he made on the Seine riverbanks and in Montmartre. Images by the three brothers, who signed their initials (JHLS) were exhibited and published in various journals and as postcards by the Kunzli brothers and Leopold Verger.
  Supported by their mother, their older sister and Louis’ wife Anna, the three brothers established a family business in 1909 under the name 'Frères Séeberger' in a studio at 33 rue de Chabrol, also in the 10th and five minutes walk from their home.
caption: Group portrait of Henri, Jules et Louis Séeberger, about 1900* © Séeberger frères
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