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Inherited from Bohumil Holas: An Anthropologist’s Films, Photographs, and Archives

Élise Sobkow-Lorec
Traduction de Saskia Brown
Cet article est une traduction de :
Le legs d’un ethnologue en partage. Collection, films, photographies et archives de Bohumil Holas [fr]

Texte intégral

Fonds Bohumil Holas, bobine 16mm E203097 « Haute-Volta », 1971

Fonds Bohumil Holas, bobine 16mm E203097 « Haute-Volta », 1971

©Andrès_Diaz_2024.

  • 1 Research workshop “Bohumil Holas: The Film Archives of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac,” (...)
  • 2 The Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac preserves eighty-eight objects from Bohumil Holas’s perso (...)

1The audiovisual collection of the Musée du quai Branly media library preserves the amateur films of Bohumil Holas (1909–1979), the former director of the Abidjan Museum (Ivory Coast). These unique reels were shown to the public for the first time at the Jean Rouch International Festival of 2023.1 Their screening raised the question of private film stocks in museum collections: what heritage value should be assigned to such amateur films today? Can these documents help us identify the provenance of the works that Holas collected for the Abidjan Museum and also for his personal collection?2 Holas’s films were part of a donation to the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac by the Ivory Coast state, but today the Musée des Civilisations de Côte d’Ivoire (MCCI) in Abidjan is interested in this collection, in the context of issues of restitution, as advocated by the present curator of the Abidjan Museum, Francis Gnoleba Tagro.

Private Amateur Films in Public Collections

  • 3 The Institut français d’Afrique noire (IFAN) was founded in 1936 in Dakar, which at the time was th (...)
  • 4 Journal officiel du Soudan français, September 13, 1948.
  • 5 The Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac’s media library preserves almost thirty monographs by Bohum (...)

2Bohumil Holas spent thirty years of his career at the Abidjan Museum, formerly the Centrifan,3 from 1948 to 1979. Subsequent to a first mission in Liberia, Holas was appointed interim director of the Abidjan Centrifan, at the head of the section for anthropology and sociology, and of the museum itself, in 1948.4 He published his many research papers there,5 and remained in this post throughout the many institutional changes and historical upheavals.

  • 6 Interview with Etienne Féau in November 2023. He knew Bohumil Holas well, and worked with him in Ab (...)
  • 7 Interview with Etienne Féau in July 2024, and archives of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (...)

3Holas then left his post as director of the Museum of Abidjan, and the accommodation that went with the job, in early 1979. He intended to move to Switzerland and stay with friends at Vevey,6 a town he knew well due to the exhibition held there in 1969, “Arts de la Côte d’Ivoire: Les trésors du Musée d’Abidjan.” His crates of possessions went ahead of him, taken by boat from Abidjan to Le Havre. On July 21, 1979, Holas had a fatal heart attack in the entrance hall of the Hotel Tiama, a few hours before he was due to take his flight. He left behind him these crates in transit.7

  • 8 Naturalization in 1949 (AMQB: 33AP/1509).
  • 9 AMQB: D004470/56645.

4These were then brought to the Ivory Coast Embassy in Paris, by order of the presidency.8 Holas, who was born in Prague and naturalized as a French citizen,9 worked and lived in Ivory Coast from 1948 to 1979. His estate came under international inheritance law, and his movable goods were therefore stored at the Ivory Coast Embassy. Since he had no heirs, his possessions were to remain there until a rightful owner could be found.

  • 10 Étienne Féau had worked closely with Bohumil Holas at the Abidjan Museum, where he had been sent as (...)
  • 11 Holas was an entomologist. His collection of beetles, moths, and butterflies was given to Jacques P (...)
  • 12 AMQB: 279AA80.

5Fourteen years later, on July 21, 1993, Jean-Hubert Martin, who at the time was the director of the Musée d’Arts Africains, Océaniens et Amérindiens (MNAAO), received a letter written by Alain Belkiri, the general secretary of the presidency of Ivory Coast, declaring that the latter wished to donate the “crates of personal effects that had belonged to Dr. B. Holas” to the MNAAO, and that Étienne Féau, the curator of the African collections there, was to take delivery of them and sort through them.10 They contained Bohumil Holas’s books, photographs, films, art objects, a collection of entomological specimens,11 clothes, and his paintings and drawings. These personal effects were divided up between different museums and libraries—the MNAAO, the Musée d’Angoulême, the Institut International de la Marionnette at Charleville-Mézières, several libraries in Paris and Angoulême, and the Naprstkovo Museum in Prague (Czech Republic).12

  • 13 A collection of sixty-one ink drawings by Bohumil Holas is preserved in the Museum of Angoulême.
  • 14 The Holas fonds at the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac contains more than ten thousand photog (...)
  • 15 Eight paintings by Holas were sent by the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in 2006 to the Napr (...)
  • 16 Preserved in the media library of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.

6The Bohumil Holas fonds contains objects relating to both Holas’s private and his public life, particularly his drawings,13 photographs,14 paintings,15 films, and sound recordings.16

The Amateur Films Shot by Bohumil Holas: Testimonies to a Life

  • 17 Reversal or slide film records the light directly as a positive image, so it is the original film w (...)
  • 18 Films E203130 to E203133, edited, dating from 1961 (Audiovisual fonds, Musée du quai Branly – Jacqu (...)
  • 19 Films E203259 to E203265, E203543, dating from 1973 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).
  • 20 Films E203286, E203287, E203268, E203270 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB) and Correspondence with Emil Stor (...)
  • 21 Films E203069, E203074, E203092, E203088, E203100 datable to 1972 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).
  • 22 Films E203311 to E203320, datable to 1973 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

7The Bohumil Holas audiovisual fonds contains more than two hundred reels, the equivalent of thirty hours of silent film shot between 1951 and 1979, in black and white, in color, edited or not, and mostly on reversal (slide) film.17 Since there is no other print for most of these reels, they represent the sole surviving trace of Holas’s vision. Twenty sound recordings accompany this resource. These films combine characteristics of family documents, travel and adventure films, and ethnographic films. Some of these depict his travels—his “round the world journey” of 1961,18 his trips to Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Singapore,19 and Europe for his paid leave—or, for his work, his conferences in South Africa (1960),20 and his time spent accompanying travelling exhibitions in Japan (1972)21 and Brazil (1973).22 All give the impression of Holas scanning the scene, trying to fix the images in order not to forget them, and describing everyday life, with its crowds, and many objects filmed in series.

8Other films record his travels in Ivory Coast. It is difficult to distinguish his trips for ethnographic, ethnozoological, and entomological study from his moments of leisure, such as hunting parties or butterfly collecting for his personal collection. Holas considered himself to be both an anthropologist and an entomologist, espousing the goal of interdisciplinarity he had learned from his training at IFAN (Bondaz 2011 and 2015), combining the natural and the human sciences.

  • 23 Fernando Po is the name the Spanish colonial administration gave the island of Bioko (Equatorial Gu (...)
  • 24 Photograph PP0178252 (Picture library, MQB).
  • 25 Film E203183 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB) and the Journal officiel of the French State, Laws and Ordina (...)
  • 26 Film E203243 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).
  • 27 Correspondence with Gilbert Bochet (AMQB: 33AP_0551): a letter from 1962 notes a recording of songs (...)
  • 28 Correspondence with Emil Storrer (33AP_1336) and film E203114 datable to 1958–1959 (Audiovisual fon (...)

9In December 1951, some thirty French, English, and Portuguese researchers met on the island of Fernando Po (Guinea)23 at the invitation of the Spanish authorities, for the International Conference of West Africanists (CIAO). Holas filmed and photographed24 what went on behind the scenes. Some of the researchers are easily identifiable, such as Théodore Monod, his colleagues from IFAN Dakar, and the heads of the zoology, entomology, and geography sections, Pierre-Louis Dekeyser, André Villiers, and Paul Pelissier.25 During his ethnographic trips, which were sometimes combined with hunting expeditions, he was, on occasion, accompanied by André Villiers,26 Gilbert Bochet (a colonial administrator and anthropologist),27 or else by his friend Emil Storrer, a Swiss gallery owner and collector.28

  • 29 Films E203109, E203108, E203104, E203103 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).
  • 30 Foromo Dana’s assignment papers (AMQB: 33AP_0033), and interview with Étienne Féau, November 2023.
  • 31 Étienne Djéolé Dago and Jean Sahiri Agbohoun were Bohumil Holas’s principal informers on Bété cultu (...)
  • 32 Zongo Yamdaogo’s assignment papers (AMQB: 33AP_0033) and interview with Étienne Féau, November 2023
  • 33 Identifiable in the film E203228 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB), due to his functions at the CSH: intervi (...)

10Bohumil Holas was often accompanied by employees of the Abidjan Museum in his missions. Bivouacking became a central subject of films that captured the everyday life of the bush, setting up the campsite, hunting, and preparing the meals. These films reflect his appreciation of life out of doors, and are shot much like an adventure film. The films from the Lagunes region29 resemble family films due to the intimacy of the filmmaker with those he is filming. The moments of joking and teasing show the special relations he had with some of his employees, including the omnipresent Foromo Dana, “museum-aide” and “boy,” full time;30 Étienne Djéolé Dago, an interministerial official;31 and Zongo Yamdaogo, gardener and temporary assistant.32 Other museum assistants joined Holas’s study campaigns temporarily, such as Antoine Békro, an accountant who was also responsible for delivering the authorizations to export local art and craft objects;33 and, lastly, Jean Sahiri Agbohoun.

  • 34 Correspondence with Jean-Louis Rinsoz (AMQB: 33AP_1257) and film E203174 datable to 1969 (Audiovisu (...)

11Some trips also had diplomatic purposes: thus Holas accompanied Jean-Louis Rinsoz, who was at the head of the tobacco company Rinsoz and Ormond SA at Vevey (Switzerland), into Senufo country; Rinsoz was an investor in Ivory Coast plantations and also helped Holas organize the 1969 exhibition.34 They became friends, and were in frequent contact when Rinsoz was appointed consul in 1970.

  • 35 Film E203063 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).
  • 36 Correspondence with Raoul-Jean Moulin (AMQB: 33 AP_1122).

12Holas sometimes inserted intertitles and geographical indications into his edited films, but the most indispensable element for transmitting what was captured by the images was missing: the voice. Holas organized private screenings, where the influence of ethnographic and documentary cinema was visible: one of his films presenting the collections of the Abidjan Museum shows that he knew other contemporary filmmakers (Les statues meurent aussi [Statues Also Die], Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and Ghislain Cloquet, 1953).35 In 1958, his plan to make a film on the Senofo, with Jean Rouch and Raoul-Jean Moulin as ethnographic advisor, did not materialize.36

Transmitting this Filmic Heritage

13The collection of Bohumil Holas’s amateur films is an orphan fonds, insofar as no rightful owners have yet been identified. This raises ethical issues concerning the publication of private content, and publicity rights pertaining to the individuals represented.

  • 37 Films E203109, E203108, E203104, E203103 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

14However, studying and circulating the films can also make it possible to identify the individuals on the screen and write their histories, particularly for the African staff of the Abidjan Museum, such as Foromo Dana, Étienne Djéolé Dago, Antoine Békro, Jean Sahiri Agbohoun, and Zongo Yamdaogo. Holas’s closest assistants unobtrusively occupied the position of apprentice directors in the series shot in the Lagunes,37 where the camera changes hands, showing a surprised or posing Holas.

  • 38 Photograph PP0181220 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

15Foromo Dana remained in Holas’s service for almost twenty years, as his right-hand man and intermediary for his affairs. He accompanied Holas for the opening of the exhibition “Arts de la Côte d’Ivoire: Les trésors du Musée d’Abidjan” (Arts of the Ivory Coast: Treasures of the Abidjan Museum) held in Vevey in 1969, and he can be seen at Holas’s side on many photos, perhaps alongside Antoine Békro.38

  • 39 Film E203239 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB): the works are presented as exhibited.
  • 40 Films E203114, E203123 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

16Bohumil Holas’s amateur films constitute a documentary resource with which to reconstruct the institutional history of the Abidjan Museum, showing the museum, its organization, and its activities, as well as the works themselves during museographical projects39 and inventory checking.40 They are invaluable for understanding the circulation of works from the museum for different international exhibitions, and they open up new avenues for provenance research on certain objects which we are unable to track down.

  • 41 E203249 dating from 1954–1955 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

17They also document the practices of the copyists, among the museum’s other craftspeople, whose workshops were located in the museum’s gardens, particularly the sculptor Konan Nyamyen and the woman potter Ya Coulibaly.41

  • 42 This expression is taken from Stéphanie Louis’s book La Cinémathèque-musée. Une innovation cinéphil (...)

18The fact that the films in the collection are by an amateur does not imply that they are devoid of artistic and cinematographic value. The documentary potential of these films fully justifies their preservation in the museum, their current relevance, and their value as originals. Apart from film library-museums,42 and the archival department of the French National Centre for Cinema, other institutions preserve films in analogical format, as does the Museum of quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, showing their desire to make amateur and ethnographic films, which are of prime interest in visual anthropology, widely accessible.

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Bibliographie

Bondaz, Julien

2011 « L’ethnographie comme chasse », Gradhiva 13 : 162-181.

2015 « À la marge des sciences coloniales ? La mission Dekeyser-Holas dans l’Est libérien (1948) », Gradhiva 22 : 168-191.

2024 « L’Afrique “à coups de pinceau”. Indiscipline des images chez Bohumil Holas », Trouble dans les collections 6 [en ligne], disponible sur : https://troublesdanslescollections.fr/2024/01/09/06_04/ (consulté le 21/08/2024).

Bondaz, Julien, et Gnoleba Tagro, Francis

2022 « De l’ethnologie coloniale à la diplomatie muséale. La nationalisation du musée d’Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire, 1942-1978) », Gradhiva 34 : 74-93.

Castro, Teresa

2019 « Vues panoramiques et travellings. Les paysages en mouvement des Archives de la Planète », in Valérie Perlès (dir.), Les Archives de la Planète. Paris, Lienart/Musée départemental Albert-Kahn : 390-397.

Chavoz, Ninon

2021 Inventorier l’Afrique : la tentation encyclopédique dans l’espace francophone subsaharien des années 1920 à nos jours. Paris, Honoré Champion : 18, citée par Anthony Mangeon, « Compte rendu », Lectures, 2022 [en ligne], disponible sur : https://doi.org/10.4000/lectures.54538 (consulté le 21/08/2024).

Losch, Flora

2022 « Penser le rapatriement du patrimoine audiovisuel africain avec la recommandation de l’Unesco en 1980 : Les apports d’un vieux débat intergouvernemental (1974-1991) », Politique africaine 165, Kathala/ACPA.

Odin, Roger (dir.)

1995 Le Film de famille : usage privé, usage public. Paris, Méridiens Klincksieck.

Papy, Louis

1948 « L’Institut français d’Afrique noire », Les Cahiers d’Outre-Mer 1 : 100-101.

Venayre, Sylvain

2022 « Voyage et images : l’insoluble problème du tour du monde (xvie-xixe) », in Magali Mélandri, Clément Poché, Serge Fouchard (dir.), Autour du monde : la traversée des images, d’Albert Kahn à Curiosity, catalogue d’exposition, Boulogne-Billancourt, musée Albert-Kahn, 2 avril-13 novembre 2022. Paris/Boulogne-Billancourt, Lienart/Musée départemental Albert-Kahn.

Vignaux, Valérie, et Turquety, Benoît (dir.)

2016 L’Amateur en cinéma, un autre paradigme : histoire, esthétique, marges et institutions, actes de colloque (Tours, Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance de l’université François Rabelais, 23-24 juin 2015). Paris, Association française de recherche sur l’histoire du cinéma.

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Notes

1 Research workshop “Bohumil Holas: The Film Archives of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac,” Thursday, May 4, 2023, in the presence of Julien Bondaz, researcher, anthropologist, and lecturer at Lyon University.

2 The Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac preserves eighty-eight objects from Bohumil Holas’s personal collection.

3 The Institut français d’Afrique noire (IFAN) was founded in 1936 in Dakar, which at the time was the capital of French West Africa. Théodore Monod was appointed as its director in 1938. The Institute had ten local centers, including the Centrifan in Abidjan (Papy 1948: Notes africaines 1961 [90]). When Senegal gained independence, the Dakar IFAN became the Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire. The Abidjan Centrifan came under the aegis of the Education Ministry of Ivory Coast, and was renamed the Centre for Human Sciences (CSH) [Bondaz and Tagro 2022]. It became the national museum after the declaration of independence on August 7, 1960.

4 Journal officiel du Soudan français, September 13, 1948.

5 The Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac’s media library preserves almost thirty monographs by Bohumil Holas, a large number of his publications in periodicals, literary essays, and a stage play.

6 Interview with Etienne Féau in November 2023. He knew Bohumil Holas well, and worked with him in Abidjan from 1976 to 1978 as the curator of the African collections of the MNAAO, at the time of the donation from the Ivory Coast to France, in memory of Dr. Bohumil Holas.

7 Interview with Etienne Féau in July 2024, and archives of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (AMQB): D004470/56645.

8 Naturalization in 1949 (AMQB: 33AP/1509).

9 AMQB: D004470/56645.

10 Étienne Féau had worked closely with Bohumil Holas at the Abidjan Museum, where he had been sent as a coopérant for national service duty, from December 1976 to February 1978.

11 Holas was an entomologist. His collection of beetles, moths, and butterflies was given to Jacques Pierre, professor at the laboratory of entomology of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in the year 2000 (Étienne Féa’s archives).

AMQB: 279AA80.

12 AMQB: 279AA80.

13 A collection of sixty-one ink drawings by Bohumil Holas is preserved in the Museum of Angoulême.

14 The Holas fonds at the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac contains more than ten thousand photographs, which are attributed partly to Bohumil Holas, and partly to professional photographers such as Louis Normand, André Cocheteux, and Gustave Labitte.

15 Eight paintings by Holas were sent by the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in 2006 to the Naprstkovo Museum in Prague (Czech Republic).

16 Preserved in the media library of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.

17 Reversal or slide film records the light directly as a positive image, so it is the original film which is developed (verifications of the inventory of the audiovisual fonds carried out by Coline Bélard from 2023 to 2024, supervised by Elodie Saget, head of the audiovisual and sound department of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac).

18 Films E203130 to E203133, edited, dating from 1961 (Audiovisual fonds, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (MQB)).

19 Films E203259 to E203265, E203543, dating from 1973 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

20 Films E203286, E203287, E203268, E203270 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB) and Correspondence with Emil Storrer (33AP_1336, AMQB).

21 Films E203069, E203074, E203092, E203088, E203100 datable to 1972 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

22 Films E203311 to E203320, datable to 1973 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

23 Fernando Po is the name the Spanish colonial administration gave the island of Bioko (Equatorial Guinea).

24 Photograph PP0178252 (Picture library, MQB).

25 Film E203183 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB) and the Journal officiel of the French State, Laws and Ordinances, January 4, 1941 to August 24–25, 1944 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris).

26 Film E203243 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

27 Correspondence with Gilbert Bochet (AMQB: 33AP_0551): a letter from 1962 notes a recording of songs at Man by Holas for Bochet, and a shared plan for a hunting party.

28 Correspondence with Emil Storrer (33AP_1336) and film E203114 datable to 1958–1959 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

29 Films E203109, E203108, E203104, E203103 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

30 Foromo Dana’s assignment papers (AMQB: 33AP_0033), and interview with Étienne Féau, November 2023.

31 Étienne Djéolé Dago and Jean Sahiri Agbohoun were Bohumil Holas’s principal informers on Bété culture. They appear in the work L’Image du monde Bété published in 1968. Étienne Djéolé Dago’s job specifications were itemized in his assignment order of 1972 (AMQB: 33AP_0034).

32 Zongo Yamdaogo’s assignment papers (AMQB: 33AP_0033) and interview with Étienne Féau, November 2023.

33 Identifiable in the film E203228 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB), due to his functions at the CSH: interview with Étienne Féau, November 2023.

34 Correspondence with Jean-Louis Rinsoz (AMQB: 33AP_1257) and film E203174 datable to 1969 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB). Jean-Louis Rinsoz was appointed consul in 1970 but died in a helicopter accident in 1971.

35 Film E203063 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

36 Correspondence with Raoul-Jean Moulin (AMQB: 33 AP_1122).

37 Films E203109, E203108, E203104, E203103 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

38 Photograph PP0181220 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

39 Film E203239 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB): the works are presented as exhibited.

40 Films E203114, E203123 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

41 E203249 dating from 1954–1955 (Audiovisual fonds, MQB).

42 This expression is taken from Stéphanie Louis’s book La Cinémathèque-musée. Une innovation cinéphile au cœur de la patrimonialisation du cinéma en France (1944–1968). Association française de recherche sur l'histoire du cinéma, Paris, 2020.

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Titre Fonds Bohumil Holas, bobine 16mm E203097 « Haute-Volta », 1971
Crédits ©Andrès_Diaz_2024.
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Élise Sobkow-Lorec, « Inherited from Bohumil Holas: An Anthropologist’s Films, Photographs, and Archives »Gradhiva [En ligne], 38 | 2024, mis en ligne le 01 juin 2025, consulté le 09 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/8699 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/1451t

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Élise Sobkow-Lorec

école du Louvre
Master 2 Biens sensibles, recherches de provenances et enjeux internationaux
elise.sobkowlorec[at]gmail.com

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