The French Madeleine Millot-Durrenberger has been collecting photographs since the 1980s, including the works of some of the greatest artists, such as Berenice Abbott, Manuel Àlvarez Bravo, John Baldessari, Sophie Calle, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Duane Michals, Joseph Sudek, Joel-Peter Witkin, and Masao Yamamoto.

Madeleine Millot-Durrenberger was initially building her collection in an intuitive way, purchasing art from friends and relatives. In time, collection became a part and parcel of her life, of which her gender and activism are salient aspects. Her collection is regularly featured at thematic displays across Europe, with more than 1300 works by 100 photographers exhibited over the past forty years. Most recently, a selection from the collection was featured at the Mulhouse Biennal of Photography.

Madeleine Millot-Durrenberger considers art collection a ceaseless game, with uncertainties, trials and errors along the way. She thinks collecting art is a play with time, and the name of the collection is a double reference to French author Marcel Proust’s famous novel, In Search of Lost Time. “The madeleine-like memories of the collection refer to those emotions and experiences we seek and accumulate through the works in the collection—works we are connected to through personal emotions and experiences, ones we want to show to, and share with, the audience. The collection is an attempt to prevent things from being scattered in the world, from being forgotten,” she says.

The collection is dominated by photographic works whose content is fictional, staged photographs, and series that offer insights into their creators’ ways of thinking.

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