Robert doisneau one of the greatest

Robert Doisneau’s photographs are intimately associated with Paris at a time when the city was the world capital of arts and culture. “He was in awe of Paris and his love never faltered until his death in 1994,” says Deroudille.

Doisneau was simply catching them flirting and kissing, in a very natural way, ” says Deroudille. The result, a kiss caught at the corner of rue du Renard and rue de Rivoli right across from the city’s town hall, feels like the best of Doisneau: a suspended moment whose beauty is known only to the lovers and the photographer.

In France, at the Atelier Robert Doisneau, his daughters manage a collection that includes 450,000 negatives. His portfolio features dozens of examples of the tenderness and thought that he used to approach his work, and his bibliography is a long one, filled with many, many books displaying yet more of his work.

Often referred to as a ‘humanist photographer’, Doisneau’s pictures focused on people by making the private and the personal visible. For decades, Paris streets, in which Parisians lived day and night to escape small, shabby and decrepit lodgings, offered the best of theatre.