Robert Doisneau : From craft to art

until sunday april 18 2010
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson
T : 01 56 80 27 00
2, Impasse Lebouis
75014 Paris
France

Attachée de presse
Jessica Retailleau
T : 01 56 80 27 00
jessica.retailleau@henricartierbresson.org.
henricartierbresson.org

Robert Doisneau has long been perceived as the bard of a ‘picturesque Paris’. A
brilliant photo-illustrator, he knew better than anyone how to capture the pleasant
image or the unexpected anecdote and was recognised for both his professionalism
and the simple poetry of the spontaneous image. But Doisneau’s work is infinitely
more complex.

Robert Doisneau has long been perceived as the bard of a ‘picturesque Paris’. A
brilliant photo-illustrator, he knew better than anyone how to capture the pleasant
image or the unexpected anecdote and was recognised for both his professionalism
and the simple poetry of the spontaneous image. But Doisneau’s work is infinitely
more complex. The Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson is showing about 100 original prints chosen
among the treasures of his archive and in various public and private collections.
The images were shot between 1930 and 1966 in Paris and in its suburbs. This
reinterpretation aims to show how Robert Doisneau went “from craft to art”, with
an unsuspected gravity, by recording on the negative the world he wanted to
inscribe for ever.