New Book
From high-society balls and fashion shoots to portraits of artists and scenes from urban life in France, this handsome volume–which features an open spine binding so that it lays flat to show off the photographs to their best advantage–showcases Doisneau’s best photographs for Vogue Paris. Celebrated photographer Robert Doisneau worked for Vogue from 1949 until 1965, illustrating a postwar France filled with a renewed zest for life. His little-known images of haute couture featured models like Brigitte Bardot and Bettina, who he photographed in the studio and out on the streets. He chronicled the members of the café society in their stately homes and at glamorous costume galas, dancing the night away. Best known for his humanist approach, he masterfully captured scenes from everyday life–from the grace of a wedding procession over a footbridge to the petulance of a child impatient for cake. Doisneau’s photographs captured the spirit of the era and featured celebrities like Karen Blixen, Picasso, Colette, and Jean Cocteau, as well as jazz musicians, movie stars, and humble craftsmen at work. Legendary Vogue editor in chief Edmonde Charles-Roux’s personal homage to the photographer–who was her friend and colleague–offers intimate insight into the man behind the camera, as complex and beautiful as the people and places he immortalized.
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.
