Robert Doisneau (1912 – 1994) was a French photographer. From the 1930s, he photographed the streets of Paris. He was a champion of humanist photography and, with Henri Cartier-Bresson, a pioneer of photojournalism.
Doisneau is known for his 1950 image Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss by the City Hall), a photograph of a couple kissing on a busy Parisian street.
He was appointed a Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion of Honour in 1984 by then French president, François Mitterrand.
Doisneau used irony in images of juxtapositions, mingling social classes, and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes. He was influenced by the work of André Kertész, Eugène Atget, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Doisneau's work gives prominence to children's street culture; returning to the theme of children at play in the city, unfettered by parents.
Doisneau's father, a plumber, died on active service in World War I, when his son was about four. His mother died when he was seven. He then was raised by an aunt. At 13, he enrolled at the École Estienne. He graduated in 1929 with diplomas in engraving and lithography and took classes in figure drawing and still life.
When he was 16, he took up amateur photography, starting by photographing cobble-stones before progressing to children and then adults.
At the end of the 1920s, Doisneau found work as a draughtsman (lettering artist) at Atelier Ullmann, a creative pharmaceutical graphics studio. He also acted as camera assistant in the studio and then progressed to a staff photographer.
In 1931, he left both the studio and advertising, taking a job as an assistant with the modernist photographer, André Vigneau. In 1932, he sold his first photographic story to Excelsior magazine.
Three years later, he began working as an industrial advertising photographer for the Renault car factory at Boulogne-Billancourt. Five years later, in 1939, he was dismissed due to repeated tardiness. He then freelanced in advertising, engraving, and postcard photography In 1991, he said that the years at the Renault car factory marked "the beginning of his career as a photographer and the end of his youth."
The same year, he was later hired by the Rapho photographic agency and traveled throughout France in search of picture stories, eventually taking his first professional street photographs.
Doisneau worked at the Rapho agency until the outbreak of World War II, where he was drafted into the French army as both a soldier and photographer. He was in the army until 1940 and, from then until the end of the war in 1945, used his draughtsmanship, lettering artistry, and engraving skills to forge passports and identification papers for the French Resistance.
Some of Doisneau's most recognizable photographs were taken after the war. He returned to freelance photography and sold photographs to Life and other international magazines. He briefly joined the Alliance Photo Agency but rejoined the Rapho agency in 1946 . He remained with them throughout his working life, despite receiving an invitation from Henri Cartier-Bresson to join Magnum Photos.
He refused to photograph women whose heads had been shaved as punishment for sleeping with Germans.
In 1948, he was contracted by Vogue to work as a fashion photographer.
Le Groupe des XV was established in 1946 in Paris to promote photography as art and drawing attention to the preservation of French photographic heritage, and Doisneau joined in 1950 and participated alongside Rene-Jacques, Willy Ronis, and Pierre Jahan. After the group was disbanded, he joined Les 30 x 40, the Club Photographique de Paris.
Doisneau continued to work through the 1970s, producing children's books, advertising photography, and celebrity portraits including Alberto Giacometti, Jean Cocteau, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, and Pablo Picasso. He also worked with writers and poets such as Blaise Cendrars and Jacques Prévert, and he credited Prevert with giving him the confidence to photograph everyday street scenes.
In 1950 Doisneau created his most recognizable work for Life– Le Baiser de l'hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville), a photograph of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris, which became an internationally recognised symbol of young love in Paris. It was published on 12 June 1950, part of a photo-essay on couples kissing in Paris. The identity of the couple was unknown until 1992.
© 2026. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Robert Doisneau or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| Robert Doisneau |
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| Les Frères, 1934 |
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| L'Œuf Électrique, 1942 |
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| Le cheval tombé, 1942 |
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| Amour et barbelés, 1944 |
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| Boulangerie à Belleville pendant l'occupation, 1945 |
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| L'Innocent, 1945 |
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| Rue Marcellin Berthelot, Choisy-le-Roi, 1945 |
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| La Mariée chez Gégène, 1946 |
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| Juliette Gréco, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 1947 |
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| L’Homme à l’Oreille, 1947 |
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| Le Regard Oblique, 1948 |
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| Un Regard Oblique, 1948 |
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| L'Innocent, 1949 |
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| Rue Royale, Paris, 1949 |
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| Le Baiser Blotto, 1950 |
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| Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville, 1950 |
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| The Bouquet of Daffodils, 1950 |
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| L'Enfer, 1952 |
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| In the Subway, 1953 |
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| L'innocent, 1954 |
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| Jacques Prévert, Rue Lhomond, 1955 |
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| Giacometti dans son atelier, 1957 |
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| La maison de carton, 1957 |
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| Le Violoncelle, 1957 |
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| At the Café, Chez Fraysse, 1958 |
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| La cabine de Lanvin, 1958 |
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| Dancers outside the Kentucky Club on Valette Street, 1959 |
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| Le Petit Balcon, 1963 |
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| La gargouille de Notre-Dame, 1969 |
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| Un chien à roulettes, 1977 |
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| Les tabliers de la rue de Rivoli, 1978 |
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| Square du Vert-Galant |
J’adore ce photographe, son regard sur le monde, son sens de l’humour, mais je ne connaissais pas son histoire.
ReplyDeleteMerci.