New Book
Previously unpublished photographs and iconic portraits of musicians from the 1950s through the 1980s offer a new perspective on Doisneau’s remarkable talent. Master photographer Robert Doisneau’s passion for the joyful energy inherent in the music world comes alive in images that cover the musical spectrum, from classical and jazz to be-bop to the roots of modern rap and alternative rock. With camera in hand, Doisneau crisscrossed Paris to capture intimate moments with star musicians such as Eartha Kitt in a jazz club, Django Reinhardt at home, and Yehudi Menuhin backstage, or with locals at a neighborhood dance or jamming in a brass band. His portraits were commissioned for stars from Juliette Gréco to Charles Aznavour to Claude François, and a new generation of musicians in the 1980s including Rita Mitsouko and Les Négresses Vertes. This book–curated by the photographer’s granddaughter to accompany an exhibition at the Philharmonie de Paris–includes more than one hundred photographs, many previously unpublished, that showcase the artist’s mastery in editing, special effects, photomontage, collage, photo distortions, and splits.
About the Author: Robert Doisneau was born in 1922 in Gentilly, a suburb of Paris. After his undistinguished youth behind the macrame curtains of a conventional middle-class family, Robert is fifteen when he learns engraving and lithography at the Estienne School in Paris and starts designing labels for drug packaging.
He becames a camera assistant at André Vigneau’s studio in 1931, where he discovers artistic outlets that will spur him on. The four years he spent working for the advertising department of Renault car maker, from where he was fired for repeated lateness, led him to the attractive position of independent photographer. World War II bursts out then, putting an end to his projects. Later, in the Parisian post-war euphoria, despite the fact that he daily deals with orders to make a living, he hoards the photos that will meet with great success, obstinately cruising where “there is nothing to see”, favoring furtive points, tiny pleasures lit by the ’ reflections of sunbeams on cities’ asphalt. When he died in April 1994, he left behind 450,000 negatives that tell an entertaining story of his time with a tender and observant eye, which must not hide the depth of his thought, his irreverent attitude toward power and authority, his relentlessly free-thinking mind.
