“I had
fun throughout my lifetime, building my own small theater.”
--Robert Doisneau
The late French icon
photographer Robert Doisneau (1912-1994 ) is remembered as the master of
mood. His black and white imagery
captures the human spirit in vivid detail.
His decades of work can be found in an online museum founded by his
daughters. No where is Doisneau’s work
more profound than his shots of Paris and the café society found in the City of
Light.
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| Image: Peter Hamilton |
Robert
Doisneau was born in 1922 in Gentilly, a suburb of Paris.
After
his undistinguished youth behind the macrame curtains of a conventional
middle-class family, Robert is 15 when he learns engraving and lithography at
the Estienne School in Paris and starts designing labels for drug packaging.
He
becomes a camera assistant at André Vigneau’s studio in 1931, where he
discovers artistic outlets that will spur him on. The four years he spent
working for the advertising department of Renault car maker, from where he was
fired for repeated lateness, led him to the attractive position of independent
photographer.
World
War II bursts out then, putting an end to his projects. Later, in the Parisian
post-war euphoria, despite the fact that he daily deals with orders to make a
living, he hoards the photos that will meet with great success, obstinately
cruising where “there is nothing to see”, favoring furtive points, tiny
pleasures lit by the ’ reflections of sunbeams on cities’ asphalt.
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| Annette and Albert Giacometti, Cafe Express, Paris, 1957 |
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| Isabelle Huppert |
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| Samuel Beckett |
When
he died in April 1994, he left behind 450,000 negatives that tell an
entertaining story of his time with a tender and observant eye, which must not
hide the depth of his thought, his irreverent attitude toward power and
authority, his relentlessly free-thinking mind.
Doisneau prints for sale.
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| Marguerite Duras at Petit Saint Benoit cafe, Paris |
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| Les Meilleures Amies, 1957 |
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| Paris, 1947 |
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| Hiver |
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