Located just a few feet from the Roger-Viollet photo agency at 6, rue de Seine, and behind the dome of the Palais Mazarin, home of the Académie Française, the Librairie des Alpes is a place steeped in history and adventurous spirit.

Maintained by the Wahl-Vibert-Guigue family since its creation in 1933, it is known around the world, especially by alpinists and mountain lovers. A mythical place which has recently opened itself up to photography.

Mountain photography. Expressing majesty, grandeur.
Mountain photography often represents man exploring the highest peaks, but it can also to expose common traits of beauty: light reflected onto a glacier , the grays of the great outdoors, and the serenity of men attaining summits.

With their sensitivity, alpinists, through their photographs, provide us with an immediate, sincere emotion. They offer us the illusion of possessing the world.

These photographers, often alpinists, are artists. Famous or anonymous, they demonstrate to us that since its inception, mountain photography is also the sublimation of ethics, aesthetics and an inner transcendence.

Discover classic photographers like Adolphe Braun (1812-1877) Charles Soulier (1867 -1865) Vittorio Sella (1859-1943)
The Gay-Couttet brothers (1890-1980) the Tairraz Dynasty: George 1 (1868-1924) Joseph (1870-1902) Georges 2 (1900-1975), Willy Ronis (1910-2009), André Kertész (1894- 1984), Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) as well as contemporary photographers such as Jean-Christophe Bechet John and Claude Batho Thibaud Cuisset, Robert van der Hilst, Bernard Plossu, Sebastiao Salgado …