Marc Riboud took his first photographs during the 1937 Paris World Fair with a small Vest-Pocket, a gift from his father. After studying engineering at the École Centrale de Lyon and working in a factory for a few years, he decided to focus solely on photography.> Read more
His first publication was in the magazine Life in 1953 with a photograph of a man painting the Eiffel tower. It was closely followed by an invitation from Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robet Capa to join the Magnum Agency.
In 1955, he travels through the Middle East and Afghanistan, stopping in India for a year, and then continuing on to China in 1957. It was after a stay in the USSR that he covered the independence movements in Sub-Saharan Africa and Algeria. Between 1968 and 1969, he was one of the few photojournalists who managed to enter and work in North Vietnam.
Marc Riboud has published many photobooks. In 2012 alone, he released three books: Choses Vues in which he freed himself from the traditional subjects of reportage by constructing a layout that relied solely on visual associations; Paroles d'un taciturne, a conversation with Bertrand Eveno on his life, convictions and photographic approach; and Vers l'Orient, a look back at his first trip from Europe to the confines of Asia.
Two major Marc Riboud retrospectives have been held: in 2004 at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and then in 2009 at the Musée de la Vie Romantique, both in Paris. Amongst many prestigious distinctions, he received the ICP Infinity Award in 2003 and the Time-Life Achievement Award in 2002.
A donation of 192 prints was made to Centre Pompidou in 2011. Since, forty of them have been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art.
The Forbidden City under the snow, Beijing, China, 1957