Exhibition
The exhibition, promoted by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo and produced by Silvana Editoriale, under the patronage of the Municipality of Milan and with the support of the Fondazione Banca Popolare di Milano and the Fondazione Fiera Milano, retraces the creative career of the great French artist through 130 black-and-white images, all from the collection of the Atelier Robert Doisneau in Montrouge, on the immediate southern outskirts of Paris.
The exhibition recounts more than fifty years of Doisneau’s career – considered, together with Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the fathers of humanist photography – through an itinerary divided into sections that examines his most recurrent and recognisable themes: from war to liberation, work, love, children’s games and leisure. Doisneau was able to bear witness to an extraordinary cross-section of the society of his time, with an attentive and sometimes amused eye for modest or disadvantaged social settings, leaving us images in which life always pulses.
The exhibition itinerary moves freely through his work, mixing different themes. Representative, iconic shots alternate with lesser-known images, placing personal creations alongside commissioned work: in every case, whatever the subject, what emerges is always the vision and the very personal spirit of Robert Doisneau.
The photographs on display were taken between the 1930s and the 1960s, with a preference for the extremely rich output of the post-war decades, and for black and white. They were made mainly in Paris and its banlieue, the photographer’s favoured places of work. The thematic approach works in dialogue with the chronological sequence: the 1930s are followed by the period of the Occupation and the Liberation of Paris. Among the most emblematic sequences, the one devoted to childhood outlines a world to which the artist declared himself deeply attached. The views of post-war Paris give way to the world of work, but at the heart of the itinerary is the “theatre of the street”, the subject of many celebrated shots, together with interior scenes, from Parisian bistros to concierges’ lodges.
The exhibition is rounded off by the screening of an extract from the film made in 2016 by the photographer’s granddaughter, Clémentine Deroudille: Robert Doisneau, Le révolté du merveilleux, which helps to deepen our understanding of the man and his work.
