The Société Industrielle de Photographie was a major French company engaged in the photographic and paper industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its headquarters and factories were established in Rueil in the Seine-et-Oise section of Paris.
The Société is first listed as a postcard publisher in the 1900 issue of the Didot-Bottin Annuaire-Almanach du Commerce de l'Industrie. The 1903 issue of the same directory pairs the registered trademark, 'S.I.P.', with the company. By 1914, the directory shows the trademark had been assumed by J. Courcier, Nanterre.
Much of the Société's postcard production during the first years of the 20th century reproduced the photos of the Reutlinger studio in Paris. At the time of the postcards' production, the studio was run by Léopold-Émile Reutlinger who was a French photographer born to a German-Jewish family of successful photographers. His uncle, Charles Reutlinger, had founded the studio in Paris circa 1850. Charles passed the studio to his brother, Émile (Léopold's father), in 1880, with Léopold assuming the studio around 1890. Léopold's son, Jean, started work in the studio at an early age, around 1910; however, he died in battle during WWI in 1914. Léopold continued to run the studio until his death in 1937.
The catalog entries are presented by series number where the series was predominantly comprised of Reutlinger's photos. A second sort of the catalog is provided by the first initial of the performer's last name. Where a name includes de, d', la, or le, it is sorted by the first initial of the word after the de, d', etc. As an example, Cléo de Mérode is listed in the M's.
Not all S.I.P. series featured photos by Reutlinger; those that did not are not reproduced in this catalog. The catalog is presented on several distinct webpages to manage the file size. These pages may be accessed via the links directly below this introduction.
*The Neue Photographische Gesellschaft (NPG), Germany, and the Rotary Photographic Company Ltd. at London also produced a substantial number of postcards of Reutlinger's photos.
This catalog was generated by Jean Ritsema at j_ritsema@msn.com (Jackson, Michigan), collaborator on the ROSS VERLAG MOVIE STAR POSTCARDS AND OTHER VINTAGE EUROPEAN POSTCARD PUBLISHERS website. In providing this on-line digital catalog as a resource to collectors worldwide, there is no intention to infringe on any copyright. If there are any objections to any of the images that are posted, please let us know so we can correct the problem.
