Le Groupe des XV was a collective founded in 1946 by fifteen (hence its name) French humanist photographers who exhibited annually in Paris until 1957.
The group's manifesto echoes that of Le Rectangle, providing a continuum between the 1930s and the immediate post-war: "loving above all their profession, animated by the same faith and eager to endow photographic art of quality works, each [...] member formally commits himself to respect the spirit of loyalty, frankness and mutual assistance which is the very basis of the grouping".
This entity administered by the XV replaced the Artisanal Professional Groups of the 1940s, enforcing copyright and reproduction, the code of ethics and pricing, without forgetting "to create between its members links of confraternity".
[22] For the annual exhibitions of Le Groupe des XV, Garban secured venues at the Galerie Jean Pascaud, 165 Boulevard Haussmann, at the Cercle de la Librairie, boulevard Saint-Germain or the Galerie Mirador, Place Vendôme, as well as offering his own portrait studio in rue Bourdaloue (9th arrondissement) for meetings.
The group had in common an interest in documenting the life of the street as a representation of French culture and valued the contribution of Surrealism and of the New Objectivity to their imagery, but they rejected pictorialism.