The main tourist and cultural hub of the Aosta Valley is dedicating an exhibition to one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century: Robert Doisneau.
Robert Doisneau. Icônes, by the Atelier Robert Doisneau of Paris and the Fort Bard Association, showcases a new selection of photographs by this great French artist taken throughout his extraordinary career.
The iconic nature of the images is the leitmotif of this journey, pictures which were largely able to capture the collective imagination and win over the general public, starting with the famous kiss of 1950, Le Baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville.
Doisneau is known for his portraits and extraordinary ability to document the reality of his daily life, working as an exponent of humanist photography. He, better than any other, was able to immortalise the legends and icons of twentieth-century Paris, fully capturing their charm. Crossing through the City of Lights from the banks of the Seine (Pont d’Iéna, Paris 1945) to the working class suburbs (La Poterne des Peupliers, 1934), he documents the Paris of lovers (La Dernière Valse du 14 Juillet, 1949; Baiser Blotto, 1950), the bistros (Mademoiselle Anita, 1951), the fashion ateliers and the street children (Les Enfants de la Place Hébert, 1957; Les Frères, 1934; L’Enfant Papillon, 1945) and the schoolchildren (L’Information Scolaire, 1956), treating us to a huge fresco of Paris and Parisians, capturing the most interesting aspects and contradictions of French society. Children and lovers are the subjects which have made him famous around the world. Portraits of celebrities are also on display, such as Picasso, Giacometti and Prévert (Les Petits Pains de Picasso, 1952; Giacometti dans son Atelier, Paris 1957; Prévert au Guéridon, 1948).
Along with Henri Cartier-Bresson, he is considered one of the founding fathers of street photojournalism. The focal point of his photography are people and their emotions, often captured during the surreal moments of everyday life (Le Regard Oblique, 1948; L’Enfer, 1952). Doisneau combines an ironic style with a poetic register in his photos. His unique ability to capture emotions comes from his skill in totally emerging himself in his surrounding world, so much so that he loved to poetically call himself a fisher of images rather than a photograph hunter.
The exhibition at Fort Bard will be enriched by an unpublished interview with the artist’s two daughters, Annette Doisneau and Francine Deroudille, who have set up an atelier holding over 450,000 negatives in the apartment where Robert Doisneau worked for over 50 years. Several large format prints will also be on display, as well as a life-like scale model of the photographer’s atelier at 46 Place Jules Ferry in Montrouge (Paris) made by his granddaughter, Sonia Arnstam, a selection of his quotes and several videos.