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In September 1973, when French President George Pompidou paid an official visit to China, Barbey joined the accompanying press group. He recorded the Chinese at the time with his favorite Kodakchrome film. Since then, Barbey has come to China many times, covering Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, Guangxi, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Macao and other places, witnessing the development of China with the change of color. The book contains more than 300 color photographs taken in China from 1973 to 2018. These photos are extensive in content, exquisite in composition and of great historical and aesthetic value.

Bruno Barbey, born in Morocco, has dual nationality, French and Swiss. He studied photography and graphic arts at the École des Arts et Métiers in Vevey, Switzerland.

In 1961-1964 he photographed the Italians, perceiving them as protagonists of a ‘theatrical world’, with the aim of capturing the spirit of a nation.

Bruno Barbey began his relationship with Magnum Photos in 1964. He served as Magnum vice president for Europe in 1978/1979 and as President of Magnum International from 1992 to 1995.

Over five decades Bruno Barbey has photographed in all five continents and covered wars and conflicts in Nigeria, Vietnam, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Kuwait. His work has appeared in the world’s major magazines and he has published over 30 books.

In 1999 the Petit Palais, Paris, organized a large solo exhibition of photographs taken by Bruno Barbey in Morocco over a period of three decades. In 2015/2016, La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, showed his retrospective exhibition which is currently circulating internationally. He published simultaneously his retrospective book ”Passages”.

He has received numerous awards for his work, including the French National Order of Merit.
In 2016, Bruno Barbey was elected a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts, Institut de France.

Today he is working on a new project and photographing extensively in China.