178 - GEORGES CHAMPROUX (Brussels, 1899–1983)

GEORGES CHAMPROUX (Brussels, 1899–1983) Brussels printing workshop, finishing printed sheets, circa 1930–1937 Period silver print, gelatin-bromide press print on glossy paper, 13 x 18 cm. A bird’s-eye view of a worker feeding a sheet of cut-sheets, slit into strips with stems, into the guillotine; on the left, a tray of finished cut-sheets stacked in bundles and a wall-mounted display of proof sheets; a second operator in the background. Each note, small and oblong in shape, features an oval reserve and a lithographed ornamental border. The subject evokes the production of a Brussels-based security printer, possibly the tickets for the Colonial Lottery, established in 1934 to benefit the Belgian Congo, whose printing was entrusted to private workshops in the capital. On the reverse, the photographer’s purple stamp: COPYRIGHT BY / REPORTAGE-PHOTO / G. CHAMPROUX / 39, Rue André V. Hasselt / BRUSSELS, number 5 on the stamp. Georges Champroux, a reporter and news filmmaker, and founder of the Actualit agency (1928), was one of the pioneers of Belgian photojournalism; his portfolio *Brussels by Night* (1935) is now being critically rediscovered. Provenance: estate of Louis Franck (1868–1937), Minister of the Colonies and later Governor of the National Bank of Belgium; John van Kessel Collection. Provenance: Collection of John van Kessel (Antwerp, 1885), head of the General Secretariat and Inspector General of the National Bank of Belgium. A professional reference document from the library of a senior executive at the Belgian central bank, this notebook illustrates the attention paid by banking circles to German security printing processes during the interwar period.