Artists' interest in Étretat continued unabated throughout the 20th century, but the village no longer played its same role as the epicentre of modernity. As tourism continued to develop, the site became a part of popular culture, following the success of Maurice Leblanc's novel The Hollow Needle, published in 1908, in which the hero, gentleman burglar Arsène Lupin, hides the treasures he has stolen in the Étretat Needle.
Following on from Balthasar Burkhard's 1995 work capturing the waves in the tradition of Gustave Courbet, the German photographer Elger Esser produced a series of photos in 2000 that explores the myth of Étretat and offers an epilogue to this artistic history of the site. He took 15 large-format photographs, whose sepia-toned prints are in dialogue with the works of the past. The photographs represent the various stops indicated by Guy de Maupassant in a letter to Gustave Flaubert in 1877, in which the future writer described the coastline from Cap d'Antifer to Étretat to his older family friend. Maupassant, who lived in the village, was familiar with the area, which he would use as the setting for several of his novels and short stories. He did so at the request of Flaubert, who was looking for a place to set an episode of his novel Bouvard and Pécuchet, with its two heroes fascinated by geology. Esser's work pays tribute to this literary and artistic dimension with which Étretat has become inextricably linked over time.

Guy de Maupassant, illustrated letter to Gustave Flaubert, 3 November 1877, facsimile reproduced in Le Manuscrit autographe, no 35, September-October 1931, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits.

Labels

Balthasar Burkhard
Bern (Switzerland), 1944 - 2010
The Wave
1995
Black and white silver print mounted on aluminum
Collection of the Frac Normandie

Elger Esser
Born in 1967 at Stuttgart (Germany)
The Manneporte
2000
Chromogenic print under framed Diasec, limited edition 7/7
Private collection

Elger Esser
Born in 1967 at Stuttgart (Germany)
The Aval Rock
2000
Chromogenic print under framed Diasec, limited edition 7/7
Private collection

Elger Esser
Born in 1967 at Stuttgart (Germany)
Pebble
2000
Chromogenic print under framed Diasec, limited edition 7/7
Private collection

Elger Esser
Born in 1967 at Stuttgart (Germany)
Étretat (after Schirmer)
2006
Hand-colored chromogenic print mounted on Alu-Dibond, limited edition 1/1
Private collection
This one-off photograph was taken by Elger Esser after the Cap d'Antifer - Étretat series, of which it is not a part. It was inspired by an old postcard, enlarged and then hand-coloured. The change of scale makes the print very visible, using a visual principle that echoes the work of the Impressionists. The title refers to the landscape studies produced in Étretat by the German painter Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, presented in the first section of the exhibition and which was known to the artist. He does not, however, take up the motif as a direct reference, but works on the concept of memory, nourished by a pictorial and cultural memory.

Neurdein Frères
Étretat, the Porte d’Amont at Rising Tide
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum