Le château d'eau, pôle photographique de Toulouse

In May 1937, dissatisfied by the academic routine of the "Photo Club", Doctor Laurentie and Bernard Saltel broke away from it, desiring freedom to take "another photograph"; the "Cercle des XII" was founded and became the institution whose evolution, 37 years later, formed the principle of the Château d'Eau.

At one of these events, in 1971, Professor Ourliac, responsible for Culture, accepted the principle of creating a photographic department at the Château d'Eau, in parallel with the painters' organisation "Les Méridionaux" formed in 1981 and in which the "Cercle des XII" had exhibited.

Three directors succeeded each other from April 1974 to the end of December 2019 at the head of the Château d'eau: From January 2020, due to historically stormy relations between town hall, the association and management, already deplored by Jean Dieuzaide himself,[3] the Gallery of the Château d'Eau was subsumed under the governance of the town hall of Toulouse, instead of the PACE association which had charge of the venue for 33 years.

After several announcements over more than a decade[9][10] for the creation of a dedicated place, the town hall finally charges the Toulouse Municipal Archives and the Château d'Eau to respectively conserve, enhance and bring this fund to life.

[13] In reaction to this decision, the Town Hall announces that it wants to refer to the Court of Cassation and the association publicly mentions the possibility of moving to Mazamet if the conflict cannot be resolved.