In 1983, Christer Strömholm (1918-2002) — who is widely considered the father of contemporary Swedish photography — wrote in Vännerna från Place Blanche (ETC Production), ‘This is a book about insecurity. A portrayal of those living a different life in the big city of Paris, of people who endured the roughness of the streets. This is a book about humiliation, about the smell of whores and night life in cafés. This is a book about the quest for self-identity, about the right to live, about the right to own and control one’s own body.’

Vännerna från Place Blanche, was also a book about friendship, an account of lives lived in the Place Blanche and Place Pigalle neighbourhoods of the city. Its market, its boulevard and the small hotels the photographer and his friends frequented. Strömholm’s stark, yet sensitive black and white images, where made in post-war Paris, at a time when de Gaulle was still president and France was at war with Algeria. 

These photographs depict people whose lives Strömholm shared, and whom he believe he understood; they are images, he would write, ‘...of women — biologically born as men — that we call “transsexuals.” As for me, I call them my friends of Place Blanche.’

Writing in the foreword to the recently published Les Amies de Place Blanche — a reissue of Vännerna från Place Blanche — Christian Caujolle says, ‘They were called “night-birds.” Having chosen to take on the female form, they were not just part of the decor, but also part of Pigalle’s identity and activity.’ Here in 1950s Paris, ‘life was mostly lived at night, except during the winter, when – before prostitution came down to the streets to mingle with passers-by — the crowd ogled freak shows or watched striptease in the booths set up on the central reservation. Such a setting — echoing with surrealism – couldn’t fail to strike the imagination,’ remarks Caujolle. 

It was here, in 1959, that Strömholm made one of his most famous photographs, of a young boy, looking up, staring opened mouth at the stockinged legs of a woman as she struts across a stage in high heels. He names the photograph, ‘the little Christer,’ and it is here suggests Caujolle, that the Swede’s relationship with Paris truly began. 

Above Gina & Nana, Place Blanche, 1963. (©Christer Strömholm/Courtesy of Dewi Lewis Publishing).

This book — which should be considered one the photographers finest — is an album of memories, that forms an account of daily life; although admittedly mainly nightlife. It depicts what must surely have been a difficult life, but one ‘filled with beautiful emotions and the vital energy’ of the male prostitutes, transvestites and transsexuals amongst whom Strömholm had chosen to live. Choosing to live in the same small hotels as those whose lives he documents, he adopts, says Caujolle ‘...their rhythms, their places, shared their early afternoon breakfasts, and, having watched them put on makeup and clothes, went with them down to the streets as they solicited for clients.’

Each December a funfair would settle in Pigalle — stretching along the boulevard Rochechouar to Place Blanche. Throughout the Christmas period the, ‘the boulevard was filled with small circuses, shooting-stands, wild beasts in cages, fortune-tellers and strippers,‘ wrote Strömholm, who would frequently make photographs amongst the crowds and of the many an varied acts; such as those of a snake charmer, a strongman, and the image of ‘the little Christer.’

In mid-January the fairground would move on, leaving the boulevard to return to normal. ‘On the boulevard and in the alleys surrounding Place Pigalle and Place Blanche, the prostitutes — both male and female, lesbians, transsexuals, transvestites or in other words: the usual group — took back their old spots.’ Continuing their desperate fight, to both to earn the daily bread and, for the transsexuals, ‘to see their identitarian dreams come true.’ They dreamt of of travelling to Casablanca, where they would undergo surgery, the culmination of a transformation started long ago. 

Strömholm said, ‘They earned 60 French Francs a day, enough to pay for the food and the hotel room but not enough to afford the 40,000 francs surgery. The streets were their only solution. Some of them had loyal customers, others stood in the same place on the street. Here, prostitution was part of the neighbourhood life. A way to survive.’

‘Six transsexuals lived on my floor,’ the fifth floor of the Hotel Chappe, says Strömholm, where each rented a room for a month. ‘Often, around two o’clock in the afternoon, I heard knocking on the wall of my room. It was Cobra, telling me coffee was ready.’ After they had taken coffee, and with night falling the pair ventured out on to the streets, frequently Cobra and others broke taboos by wearing skirts. ‘Aunt Yvonne’, as we called Madame de Gaulle, was the incarnation of morality. So she was the one who determined the lives of my friends. A man had the right to wear makeup or a wig, to put on a blouse or even tight leather pants, but he could never wear a skirt. No, not a man!, writes Strömholm. But with the darkness of the night, came a more relaxed attitude to such bans, and police controls became less frequent. ‘During the short morning hours, my friends could live more freely their women lives.’

Above Martine, 1968. (©Christer Strömholm/Courtesy of Dewi Lewis Publishing).

During the fifties, there were around 50 transvestites on the Place Blanche, but it was late in the decade that the word ‘transsexual’ began to be used according too Strömholm. ‘It was also at that time that it became possible for a man to physically become a woman thanks to hormones and surgery. But hormone therapy has also been the cause of tragedies. Often they were denied the help of a doctor. So they had to fend for themselves. Sometimes they dealt with difficult problems, the consequences of which could be irreversible, or fatal: incorrect dosages, suicides...’

Bt with these physical changes came other problems, ‘My friends could not find work,’ says Strömholm. In Paris, an identity card was necessary, and if the ‘name did not fit the feminine appearance, any job became an inaccessible dream.’ With no social security, and society’s ‘unwillingness to understand,’ life became impossible. ‘This cost Strömholm’s ‘friends’ dear. ‘The State pushed people into prostitution even though it pretended to fight it,’ he says, and ‘22 years later, only one friend of mine still lives on prostitution.’

When Strömholm first arrived in the neighbourhood, it was a woman called Nana that he befriended. ‘At first, she was a beautiful and intelligent “flapper.” Now, she is a woman, even more beautiful and intelligent,’ he says. It was Nana who would introduced him to Jacky, Sabrina, Gina, Cobra, Caprice, Miriam, Carole, Dolly, Zarah, Carmen, Paulette and the others. 

‘From the age of ten, I always thought about the same thing: becoming a girl, but how?,’ says Nana. ‘In the local press, there were articles and pictures of Christine Jorgenssen – the GI who became a woman at the age of 51, but also of the painter Pierre-Marie Poulain as a woman, accompanied by his wife. So there was a way. Then one day, in 1955, I met Bambi and her friends on a street in Oran: the cast of the Carrousel was there for a season at the Canastel Casino. I realised it was my way: to go to Paris and try to be like them: artists, applauded and admired. I was still under age, but I was there: in Paris, and it was all about to start.’

‘Gina and Cobra have died since... Gina, she had surgery at the Clinique du Parc in Casablanca. She came back to Place Blanche with a new identity,’ and bought herself a small white sports car and an apartment, but a few years later, she died of cancer. Whilst Caprice committed suicide in her small apartment on the rue Clef. ‘Desperate, lost and alone — heroin was her final companion, he writes.

Above Jacky, Place Blanche, 1961. (©Christer Strömholm/Courtesy of Dewi Lewis Publishing).

‘Sabrina became one of the great attractions of the Alcazar. Jacky works at the Carrousel, in Montparnasse. Carole and Nana have toured Europe as strippers. Dolly was the queen of Chez Nous for a while, in Berlin. Miriam is currently a call-girl in Montmartre. Zarah, who came from Hamburg, worked at Madame Arthur, the famous transvestite cabaret, rue des Martyrs in Pigalle. Now, her name is Frenchy and she lives in Hamburg again, where she works as a costume designer. Her work is recognised around the world,’ says Strömholm.

In the early sixties, Strömholm lived at rue Constance — near the rue Lepic — with Paulette. ‘Each night,’ he says, ‘I took my pipe, my old Leica, a few Tri-X films, the little French I knew and I went down to the brasserie on the Place Blanche. Everyone knew what I was doing. I never took stolen pictures. I worked without a flash; I only used the existing light, often neon light.’ Over time he perfected his techniques of night photography. ‘As I developed the films in my hotel room, I could quickly check the result on the negatives. If the pictures were poorly exposed or if I had committed a technical mistake it did not matter. I had every night ahead of me.’ 

At around 6am each morning, as dawn approached, ‘We drank our hot chocolates; bought the newspaper’ and walked quietly along the boulevard, and up rue Lepic to go back to our small hotel rooms. ‘In Paris, it was morning, but for the friends of the Place Blanche, it was still night-time. My friends lived together in a world apart, a world of shadows and loneliness, anxiety, hopelessness and alienation,’ reflects Strömholm. ‘The only thing they demanded was to have the right to be themselves, not to be forced to deny or repress their feelings, to have the right to live their own lives, to be responsible, to be at ease with themselves. Nothing more. It was then — and still is — about attaining the right to own one’s own life and identity.’

It was in a small hotel behind Place Clichy that I first saw the photographs of Strömholm, writes Hélène Hazera. ‘I was barely 20 and had changed my first name a few months earlier, having started a hormone treatment to make my body more consistent with my new name.’ I immediately noticed the quality of the photographs, she says, ‘Contrary to the expectations these ladies would have had with another photographer, they weren’t “glamorous.” As I gradually became familiar with that environment, I found more photographs by Strömholm at other people’s places. They would emerge from an orange box and I would be told stories. They were more than quality photographs, they were a family album, an irreplaceable witness of the time when the first Parisian transsexuals walked the streets or made the cabarets’ fortunes.’

‘Tender and determined,’ Les Amies de la Place Blanche is a ‘committed book — a manifesto — as can be seen in the final words of Strömholm’s introduction to the first edition’ says Caujolle: ‘It was then — and still is — about attaining the right to own one’s own life and identity.’

Les Amies de Place Blanche is published by Dewi Lewis Publishing. An exhibition of the series will open at the Michael Hoppen Gallery, London on 20 April 2012.