At the Galeries Lafayette
(Aux Galeries Lafayette)
(c. 1930)
Medium
gelatin silver photograph
Measurements
15.5 × 21.8 cm (image and sheet)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2022
© Estate of Germaine Krull
Gallery location
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Ground Level, NGV International
About this work
This photograph showcases the illuminated signs of Paris’s Galeries Lafayette, Europe’s largest department-store chain at the time. The moody night scene features the bright words jouets (toys) and Étrennes (New Year’s gifts) on the shopfronts, evidence of the booming economy of 1920s France before the Great Depression. This photograph is a quintessential image of the vibrancy of Paris during the interwar period, one of many that Krull captured throughout the 1930s.