The Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris now has around 21,000 works in its collections. Founded over 35 years ago, the MEP has followed the tastes and trends of its times, revealing a survey of photography from the second half of the 20th century. The collection is based on several major series, first published in monographs, by some of the world’s leading postwar photographers. Richard Avedon, Larry Clark, Raymond Depardon, Robert Frank, Ralph Gibson, William Klein, Josef Koudelka, Irving Penn, Bernard Plossu and Johan van der Keuken, to name just a few, paved the way for generations of photographers. The show also features some major commissions about the capital by the association Paris Audiovisuel and the MEP, from Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Paris à vue d’œil in 1984 to Martin Parr’s Grand Paris in 2014. Gifts account for nearly a third of the collection.