DOISNEAU, Robert

About the French photographer Robert DOISNEAU (1912-1994)

Robert DOISNEAU is considered a representative of 'humanistic photography', this turned more to people in their everyday lives, rather than primarily seeking the sensational. He began photographing professionally in 1929, a year after graduating from the École Estienne in Paris with a diploma in lithography and engraving. His first photo reportage was printed in 1932. In 1934, he became a factory photographer at the now-demolished Renault plant on Île Seguin in Boulogne-Billancourt. In 1939 he gave up this job and worked freelance. He served in the army for a year, then was a photographer for the Resistance, documenting the occupation and liberation of Paris. His contact with the founder of the Rapho agency brought him definitively to photojournalism. From 1949 to 1952 he worked for Vogue magazine, before and after that he photographed for Life, Paris Match, Réalités, Point de Vue, Regards and other magazines.
The flâneur Robet DOISNEAU became famous for his pictures from the streets of Paris and for the way he photographed everyday people. In the process, he took about 350,000 photos. Some of his photos, which appeared in magazines in the 1940s and 1950s, later received greater attention. One of them is the photo 'The Kiss in front of the Hôtel de Ville' from 1950, which shows a kissing couple in front of the Paris City Hall and is considered his most famous work. It first appeared in Life and became a popular poster and postcard subject from the mid-1980s. Also from Life was the photograph 'Un Regard Oblique', showing a couple in front of a shop window. In addition to Parisian street scenes, he created portraits of personalities such as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque or Orson Welles known. Robert DOISNEAU died on April 01, 994 in Paris, his grave is located in the municipal cemetery of the village Raizeux near Rambouillet.

Photo books by, about Robert DOISNEAU and with his works (a selection)

• 'Imprimeries Clandestines' (1945); 'La Banlieue de Paris' (1949, 1992, 1995); '1, 2, 3, 4, 5, compter en s’amusant' (1955); 'Paris und die Pariser' (1955); 'Paris Parade' (1956); 'Gosses de Paris' (1956); 'Enchantements sur Paris' (1957); 'Das Paris von Robert Doisneau und Max-Pol Fouchet' (1976); 'Trois Secondes d'Eternité / Drei Sekunden Ewigkeit Three Seconds of Eternity' (1979, 1980, 1989, 1997, 2004, 2005); 'Renault. Die dreißiger Jahre' (1990); 'Le Vin des rues' (1990); 'Rue Jacques Prévert' (1992); 'A Retrospective' (1993); '40/44' (1994); 'A Photographer's Life' (1995); 'Robert Doisneau' (1995, 2009, 2014, 2022); 'Paris' (1996, 2005, 2009, 2023); 'La Transhumance de Robert Doisneau' (1999); 'Tout les jours dimanche' (2001); 'Paris Life' (2002); 'Portraits of the Artists' (2008); 'From Craft to Art' (2010); 'Mein Paris' (2010); 'Palm Springs 1960' (2010); 'Paris: Les Halles' (2011, 2012); 'The Vogue Years' (2017); 'Allons voir la mer avec Doisneau' (2018); 'Paris Mon Amour' (2018); 'Fotografen - Legenden und ihre Kameras' (2019); 'Music' (2022)
  

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