Germaine Van Parys (1893–1983) was a pioneering Belgian photojournalist and first woman in Belgium who practiced this profession. By the end of the First World War, she was recognised as one of Belgium’s most competent photographers.
She first worked for Le Soir(1922), then for La Meuse (1932), also contributing to the Paris weekly L’Illustration. In addition to images of royalty, she covered national catastrophes, plane crashes and assassinations. Of particular interest are her photographs of the Namur floods in 1926. She was one of the few women photographers to be a correspondent during the Second World War, also covering the Belgian liberation.
In 1956, she created her own agency, Van Pariys Media. Van Parys died in Brussels in 1983.
