Taschen's Robert Doisneau Paris: The Biographer of Paris

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The Biographer of Paris

"Something can always happen on any street corner." Robert Doisneau

July 2024

Optical Distortion / Distorsion optique, 1965

Robert Doisneau: Paris - Courtesy of Taschen

July 2024: In less than two weeks, the world will be watching Paris when the Olympic Games begin on 26 July 2024. But it is also at a time when the country is facing uncertainty and unpredictable political crises. Time to take a look back at the eventful history of this city through the lens of one of France's most famous photographers.

Leading representative of humanist photography

Robert Doisneau is considered a representative of "humanist photography", photos that show people in their everyday lives instead of always seeking the sensational. Born in Gentilly on 14 April 1912, Doisneau served in the army for a year and was then a photographer for the Resistance; among other things, he documented the occupation and liberation of Paris. Cologne-based Taschen Verlag has summarised this work under the title "Robert Doisneau Paris". It was written by the historian and critic Jean Claude Gautrand (1932-2019), who has already produced four Paris books for the publisher: Brassaï (2004), Paris. Portrait of a City (2011), Robert Doisneau (2014) and Eugène Atget. Paris (2016). Gautrand was Doisneau's long-time companion and has received archives and texts from Doisneau's daughters Francine Deroudille and Annette Doisneau.

Light years would separate him from the sensationalist press photographers of his time.

The book is divided into 5 chapters that trace the classic, and unfortunately very lengthy, career path of every photographer: Youth (1912-1939), The War (1939-1945), A Thirst for Images (1945-1960), The Learn Years (1960-1980) and Recognition (1980-1994). Critics are unanimous in describing Doisneau as a leading representative of humanist photography - a philanthropist. Light years would separate him from the sensationalist press photographers of his time. Doisneau himself said that he did not realise "how time was passing, I was so busy with the spectacle that my contemporaries offered me incessantly and for nothing, and I delighted them with a picture in passing whenever the opportunity presented itself." He was aware that he was encroaching on the sphere of those photographed and had to face legal proceedings for this, a challenge that still exists in street photography today. However, he never let this stop him and continued his documentation of Paris:

Robert Doisneau: "The quality of a photographer is to hope against all odds for a miracle, to believe in serendipity. Something can always happen on any street corner. I build my stage set, a rectangle, and then I wait for the actors to perform something."

As Doisneau's daughters describe it: "For a photographer, the first seventy years are a bit difficult, but after that it gets better," our father used to say. Doisneau's work lives on in his 450,000 photographs, which he carefully organised and labelled. His daughters Annette and Francine founded the Doisneau studio in the rooms of his flat.

In Robert Doisneau Paris, you gain a deep, decades-long insight into the real Paris of the people who lived, worked and fought there. The book has been published in 3 languages.

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TASCHEN

Robert Doisneau. Paris

Hardcover, 25 x 34 cm, 3.31 kg, 440 Seiten

€ 50

taschen.com