About Robert Doisneau

During his long career, photographer Robert Doisneau documented the French people. His camera sought the surreal in everyday life; the amusing juxtaposition, the faibles of human nature, all captured by an artist who was charmed by his subjects. Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) was born in Gentilly, France. He studied lithography, but soon turned to photography. He worked for Renault as an industrial and advertising photographer until 1939. During the war he worked for the resistance forging documents. In 1948, he began work for French Vogue, but his heart was in photojournalism, and the streets of Paris, to which he returned in 1951. Doisneau has been the subject of major retrospectives at the bibliotheque National in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. His photographs have become widely recognized and beloved in the history of photography.