(Image credit: Fondation Pathé, photographie Michel Denancé © 2014 – Renzo Piano Building Workshop)
Recognized as a public service, the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation has been working since 2006 to preserve and enhance the historical heritage of Pathé. The Pathé company, which was founded just a few months after cinema was invented, has been producing, distributing, and screening films for 120 years, and its rich archives are the source of the Foundation’s work.
The Jérôme Seydoux‐Pathé Foundation’s collection dates back to 1896, when Emile and Charles Pathé created the Pathé Frères company. The collection offers insights into the industrialization of the phonograph and the cinematograph, and bears witness to the company’s key role in the film industry for over a century.
Today, the Jérôme Seydoux‐Pathé Foundation brings together:
‐ more than 1,000 meters of historical archives
‐ 6, 000 posters, signs, mock‐ups and drawings
‐ more than 2 million photographs of screenings, sets and film productionsshoots
‐ More than 500 pieces of equipment and accessories
‐ 30,000 printed documents, including programs, film and equipment catalogs, movie scripts, press kits and reviews, instruction manuals, synopses and shooting scripts
‐ approximately 5,000 books
‐ 110 magazines
‐ 350 film-related objects and costumes
Since 2015, the foundation also holds Pathé’s silent films. This collection includes nearly 3,000 titles.
The Foundation owns the archives of the Pathé company and those of more than 80 other companies affiliated with the group. These include administrative documents, such as notes from board meetings and statues, as well as correspondence, patents, and other accounting and legal documents.
Documents and films can be consulted in the foundation’s research centre. The collection is also available on loan for exhibitions, publications, documentaries, etc.
In its centre, located at 73 avenue des Gobelins in Paris, the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé has a cinema with nearly 70 seats. Its programming is entirely devoted to silent films. It also organizes exhibitions from its collections in its spaces: the Collections Gallery, dedicated to temporary exhibitions, and the Apparatus Gallery, dedicated to technology.
http://www.fondation-jeromeseydoux-pathe.com/
Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé
73, avenue des Gobelins
75013 Paris