Robert Doisneau
Given moments
A leader in humanist photography, Robert Doisneau is probably the most famous French photographer in the world: according to his daughter Francine, the Atelier Robert Doisneau and its collection of 450,000 negatives have contributed to 158 exhibitions since his death in 1994. This impressive figure reflects almost universal appreciation, but almost implies that everything has been seen and said about the author of the essential Kiss at the Hôtel de Ville. However, this new exhibition, after two years of preparation and with the help of his two daughters, Francine Deroudille and Annette Doisneau, aims to convey something beyond images: “a way of looking at others.”
The exhibition curators have thus opted for a thematic route that shows the different aspects of Robert Doisneau’s work while maintaining a common thread: “poetic realism,” a notion that is quickly understood upon seeing the approximately 400 prints in the exhibition. The term also refers to a cinematographic movement born in the 1930s – just like humanist photography – which is not without recalling that these photos, always impressive in their mastery of composition, have a certain capacity to tell stories. We (re)discover his closeness to writers, including his friend Jacques Prévert, with whom he shared a taste for surrealism (the Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons, the cabaret run by the Prévert brothers in the 1950s, was also located on the ground floor of the current Maillol Museum).
A stroll through the complex work of an artist so often simplified, who here rediscovers his poetic and profoundly human dimension. His amused view of childhood. His Parisian suburbs that turn from black and white to color. A visit in complete complicity to the studios of painters and sculptors; his exploration of post-war fashion and luxury during the Vogue years. So many themes that draw a social observation of an unforgiving world with which he always felt solidarity.
