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Irène Gernsheim, née Guénin, the second wife Helmut Gernsheim, the photographer and photographic historian, died aged 92 years on 22 April 2026. Irène and Helmut were married in 1971. After Helmut Gernsheim's death in 1995, she contributed to preserving his legacy and regularly spoke about his work in the history of photography. 

In 2002 Irène, passed Gernsheim's collection of twentieth century photography, including his own photographs, to the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany. The REM held an exhibition, curated by Claude Sui, based on this material from September 2012-February 2013. For the first time since the Gernsheims sold their collection to the University of Texas in 1963 Niepce's View from the Window at Le Gras (c.1826-27) returned to Europe and was shown in the exhibition. 

Helmut's first wife, Alison, née Eames, whom he married in 1946 died in 1969 and was a significant and equal collaborator on both his, and their joint publications, notably The History of Photography (OUP, 1955 and 1969).

Born one hundred and fifty years apart the achievements of the struggling landowner and inventor Nicéphore Niépce and the groundbreaking photo historian Helmut Gernsheim were inextricably linked when Gernsheim rediscovered Niépce’s long-lost first photograph in a trunk. Graham Harrison looks at the exploits of the photographer turned historian and of the brilliant, but ill-fated, Frenchman who Gernsheim proved was the true inventor of photography.

Making History: The Gernsheims and Nicéphore Niépce on Photo Histories.

With thanks to Michael Pritchard who provided information concerning Helmut Gernsheim’s membership of the Royal Photographic Society and to Sir Roy Strong who kindly answered questions about the Gernsheim Collection in Oxford in March 2013.