The images displayed in this exhibition come fromDoisneau studio in Montrouge, in the south of the French capital. Robert Doisneau embodies the image of the humanist photographer immersed in the life of his city. Images that narrate the beauty but also the contradictions and social transformations of our history. It is his ability to tell about his city, everyday life and emotions but also the sometimes rough condition of adults, but he always does it gracefully and often with melancholy and a subtly playfully evident irony. Among the works on display Le Baiser de l'Hôtel de Ville, Paris, 1950, famous and iconic image, considered among the most reproduced in the world. (cover photo)
In Montrouge, Doisneau developed and archived his images for over fifty years. He has left a legacy of nearly 450.000 negatives. From the same atelier, today the two daughters work on the diffusion and dissemination of his work, welcoming the continuous requests from museums, festivals and publishing houses.
Born in 1912 in Gentilly, a town in the southern suburbs of Paris, he began his training in the field of lithography, but which he quickly abandoned in favor of an apprenticeship in the photographic studio of André Vigneau. TO later, for four years, he collaborated with the advertising department of Renault.
Once free of this commitment, Robert Doisneau becomes an independent photographer, but which he suspended due to the war. Immediately after the Liberation of the French capital, a very intense period of commissions began for advertising (and in particular for the automotive industry), the press (including the magazines "Le Point" and later "Vogue") and the publishing.
At the same time he carries on his other personal projects, which will be the subject of numerous publications, starting withopera La Banlieue de Paris, released in 1949 and created in collaboration with writer Blaise Cendrars.
After meeting Jacques Prévert and Robert Giraud as well as the actor and cellist Maurice Baquet, he staged a large number of pictures. From 1946 his photographs are distributed by the Rapho agency and where he meets Sabine Weiss, Willy Ronis and Édouard Boubat, who together with him will form a aesthetic current often defined as “humanist”.
In 1983 he was awarded the “Grand National photography prize”. The Aosta exhibition sees 128 of his most beautiful images.
