ROBERT DOISNEAU
French
Despite a career in commercial photography that
included a wide range of industrial, advertising,
fashion, and reportage work, Robert Doisneau’s
true subject was the life of ordinary people on the
streets of Paris. About this work he said:
If you’re going to work in a life teeming with people you
must have a few rock-hard principles to anchor you and
you mustn’t dissipate your efforts. So I decided to stick to
ordinary, everyday life for my source material and steer
clear of picturesque effects. When I had to choose
between a member of some lunatic sect and a French
polisher, I’d choose the French polisher.
(Doisneau,Three Seconds of Eternity1979 & 1990;
Paris: Contrejour)
Doisneau held the popular Parisian view that Paris
is a theatre. He was aflaneur, someone who walks
and observes. His method was to immerse himself in
street life, strolling and waiting for the photograph to
happen. He said that he worked instinctively and was
motivated by a desire to share the visual delights he
experienced. He knew Paris intimately and for him
the streets were full of familiar pleasures.
I only feel at home in the sort of streets where you come
across an old-age pensioner with a little white dog, a
flower lady, a kid on roller skates, and a fat man, all at
the same time’ he said. ‘I shall always be the last person
left sauntering in the street.However, the Paris he immortalised is the Paris of
the popular imagination, and one which had largely
disappeared by the end of Doisneau’s life. This vision
of Paris lives on as a romantic dream in his imagery,
whichiswidelyusedinadvertisingandissoldin
postcard and poster form. As a result, Doisneau is
arguably the most popular and best known of French
photographers.
Doisneau was born in Gentilly, a banlieue (sub-
urb) of Paris. His father was a plumber. On leaving
school at 13 he studied lithography and engraving at
L’Ecole Estienne in Paris and his decision to take up
photography was, in part at least, a reaction to the
outdated techniques and repressive academicism of
the school. It also helped him find his subject matter;
he later said he would willingly have swapped the
whole cupboardful of Roman Emperors he was
expected to draw at the school for the chestnut seller
in the Place d’Italie who was real and alive.
From the beginning Doisneau combined a career
in photography with following his own photo-
graphic interests independently. He learned photo-
graphy both through working for an advertising
studio and as an assistant and by buying a Roll-
eiflex and taking photographs of the Paris streets
on Sundays and in time taken off work. Later he
commented that initially no-one was interested in
this work. In 1934, he became an industrial photo-
grapher at the huge Renault factory in Billancourt
where, for five years, he worked taking photo-
graphs with a large format camera and a magne-
sium flash. The pleasure he derived from his work
would seem to have come as much from entertain-
ing the workers with the magnesium flash as from
the photographs. At the same time he was experi-
menting with his own secret colour print process in
his kitchen at home, which he dreamed might make
him independent of the factory. However, it was his
frequent lateness, for which he was sacked, which
achieved this dream. He began a career as a repor-
tage photographer or photojournalist, signing with
Rapho Photo Agency; it was interrupted by the
outbreak of World War II in 1939. After military
service he returned to occupied Paris where it was
difficult for him to work as a photographer,
although using the engraving skills he had learned
at L’Ecole Estienne he forged documents for the
French resistance and eventually photographed the
liberation of Paris.
After the war Doisneau was able to take up repor-
tage again. He briefly joined the Alliance photo
agency then re-joined Rapho in 1946 and stayed
with them despite an invitation from Henri Cartier-
Bresson to join Magnum Photos. In this period his
photographs were published in magazines which
included Le Point, Action, Regards, Life,and
Vogue. He worked forVoguefor several years but
was uncomfortable with the world of fashion photo-
graphy. The support of the writer, Blaise Cendrars,
whom he had met in a barber’s shop in Aix-en-
Provence, helped Doisneau get his first book of
photographs published in 1949. In 1950, his most
famous image,Baiser de l’Hotel du Ville(Kiss in
front of City Hall), was published inLifemagazineDOISNEAU, ROBERT