“I spent my life leaving, lacking an anchor, as belong nowhere.”
The Belgian George Simenon, the popular and prolific wriler, the master of words, the creator of Inspector Maigret now surprises us with another Simenon documenting the world in photographs. He started photographing as a hobby. Being a curious, open-minded man, he depicted people all over the world just as they are. He approached people from the point of view of an amateur and self-educated photographer: he photographed their everyday life precisely and with an empathy similar to that of humanist photographers. Though he portrayed individuals when photographing in different parts of the world, on the canals in France, in the Belgian streets and cafés of the 1930s, in Central-Europe, and in the African colonies, he always sought to depict the common people, no matter where they lived. George Simenon donated his pictures, correspondence and manuscripts to the University of Liége in 1976.
The pictures of the exhibition were selected from this collection and will be presented first in Mai Manó House, then in the House of Arts in Pécs.