Le savant et l'éditeur - La belle époque des sciences populaires chez Flammarion (1875-1914)

The Scholar and the Publisher - The Belle Époque of Popular Science at Flammarion (1875-1914)

Exhibition from September 3 to 24, 2025

Please note: exceptional closure Saturday, September 6, 2025

To mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of Éditions Flammarion and the 100th anniversary of Camille Flammarion's death, Galerie Gallimard is presenting a new exhibition, The Scholar and the Publisher. The Belle Époque of Popular Science at Flammarion (1875-1914), from September 3 to 24, 2025.

The exhibition

One hundred and fifty years ago, Ernest Flammarion entered the bookselling business by partnering with Charles Marpon, a well-known bookseller in the galleries of the Théâtre de l'Odéon. In this role, he would become one of the most important publishers of his generation, competing in the field of popular and illustrated books with already well-established houses such as Hetzel and Hachette.

But in 1875, Flammarion's surname was not unknown to the French. Ernest's older brother, Camille, had already achieved initial notoriety through the publication of his articles and works on astronomy, which focused on the observation and description of the sky. Inspired by a vitalist and spiritualist conception of the created world, his thinking, nourished by scientific knowledge, focused on the habitability of infinite spaces. A lyrical and universalist progressive, a tireless promoter of the popularization of knowledge, Camille Flammarion followed in the footsteps of the great astronomer François Arago at the beginning of the ^19th century.

As if by design or by the mark of destiny, the scientific and publishing itineraries of the two brothers converged: Camille published his monumental Astronomie populaire under the label of Ernest's publishing house in 1879 and met with immense success. The publishing path was open and, from reissues to new releases, the Flammarions established themselves as the main driving forces behind the illustrated dissemination of science in French bookselling during the Belle Époque.

The knowledge and imagination of new generations of readers will be profoundly changed, and for a long time to come. The proof is in pictures... and what pictures!

The Galerie Gallimard thanks the Camille-Flammarion Observatory of Juvisy (French Astronomical Society) and Elsa Courant (Sorbonne University / CNRS).