Orphan Windows
Photography of Franck Delautre

From Friday 17 April to Sunday 28 June 2026, the museum presents the moving photographs of Franck Delautre: forgotten shop windows, silent witnesses of the towns and villages of our childhood.

Opening night and inaugural talk with the artist on Friday 17 April at 6 pm.

“Today’s ordinary is tomorrow’s historic.”

Since 2014, Franck Delautre has been cycling across France, camera in hand, to capture the last orphan shop windows of the 20th century: faded displays, silent façades, abandoned storefronts, often deserted for decades.

A professional photographer since 1995 and a published photographic author, he documents this fragile heritage with modesty and persistence: “My priority, our priority, is that these storefronts do not vanish forever, like film sets abandoned to oblivion.”

His images reveal the modest beauty of peeling façades, mute signs, lowered shutters, discreet presences, reflections of a vanished world.

The exhibition resonates with the old-village scenes of the museum, extending through photography what the objects themselves tell.

To extend the experience, the book Les Vitrines orphelines by Franck Delautre is available for online purchase on the Suzac Editions website: https://www.suzac.fr/catalogue/vitrines-orphelines/

Ticket information :
Exhibition included in the Museum admission.
Tickets are available online or at the Museum reception.

Additional information :
Free talk, booking required.
The Living History Museum reception
📍 Chemin de Frilure, 77134 Les Ormes-sur-Voulzie
📞 Telephone : +33 (0)1 60 58 72 07
💻 Mail : museevieautrefois@orange.fr