From 1927 until the beginning of the 1980s, photographs from this legendary press agency have provided a visual account of the defining moments of world history; conflicts, great achievements, social movements, technological progress and artistic inspiration. The images are a visual testimony of the 20th century, a unique and monumental heritage with more than ten million photographs preserved on negatives or glass slides.
To consult Keystone’s archive is to embark on an historical voyage that covers an entire century: Paris “à la belle époque”, the Second World War, the Algerian war, the workers strikes, May ’68, as well as celebrities such as Buster Keaton, the Kennedy family, Françoise Sagan or even Cassius Clay and Princess Grace from Monaco to name but a few.
In October 1914, Bert Garaï, a Hungarian immigrant, leaves behind the European cities of Berlin, Paris and London to sail to New York. By now the war in Europe has been in progress for four months. On his arrival in New York, the young man finds a job in a Manhatten press agency. He starts by addressing envelopes, and goes on to writing the captions that accompany the published photographs. In 1917, the United States declares war on Germany, Garaï photographs his four-year old son wearing the American uniform of a soldier and entitles this visual cliché “Uncle Sam’s youngest recruit”. It becomes the leading photograph of newspapers all over the world. Garaï is subsequently promoted to the post of assistant editor and it is in this role that he creates a department dedicated to current affairs. Shortly afterwards the agency is taken over by the Keystone View Company. At the end of the war, Garaï returns to Europe to cover the news as a reporter. He establishes the Keystone agency in London, it’s an instant success. With financial support, he then buys out the New York agency, and in the meantime organises the establishment of an office in Berlin in 1923. Four years later, Keystone Paris was created. The management was entrusted to Bert Garaï’s younger brother, Alexander Garaï, who went on to become one of the recognised figures of photojournalism in France. Keystone photographers the world over, remained largely anonymous, as they did not sign their images, fed the press with what have now become visual clichés. In 1940, during the occupation, the agency was forced to leave its premises and work in lorry converted into a mobile photo laboratory. After the war, no event whether political, historical, or social escaped the trained eye of the Keystone photographer. This remained the case until the middle of the 1980’s. Today the archives are not only referred to by the press, but also by historians as well as amateur photo-journalists for whom Keystone’s archives provide a unique opportunity to delve into the visual images of the past.
