VILNIUS - More than 80 pictures by the legendary French photographer Robert Doisneau are currently showing in an exhibition at the Vilnius Picture Gallery. His iconic photographs bear affectionate witness to a bygone way of life in France, the most famous example being that kiss ("Le Biaser de l'Hotel de Ville"), which has been reproduced by the million, and is perhaps the ultimate symbol of urban romance.
Doisneau (1912 's 1994) was one of France's most popular and prolific reportage photographers, and is best-known for his modest, playful, and ironic images of amusing juxtapositions, which mingled social classes and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes.
Influenced by the work of Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau captured a charming vision of human frailty and life as a series of quiet, incongruous moments. He once wrote: "The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street."
Doisneau was born in Gentilly in the Val-de-Marne, France. He studied engraving at the Ecole Estienne in Chantilly, but went on to learn photography in the advertising department of a pharmaceutical firm.
He began photographing details of objects in 1930. He sold his first photo-story to the Excelsior newspaper in 1932. He was a camera assistant to the sculptor Andrei Vigneaux and did military service prior to taking a job as an industrial and advertising photographer for the Renault auto factory at Billancourt in 1934. Fired in 1939, he took up freelance advertising and postcard photography to earn his living.
Doisneau worked for the Rapho photo agency for several months until he was drafted in 1939. He was a member of the Resistance both as a soldier and as a photographer, using his engraving skills to forge passports and identification papers. He photographed the occupation and liberation of Paris.
Immediately after the war he returned to freelance work for Life and other leading international magazines. Against his inclinations, Doisneau did high-society and fashion photography for Paris Vogue from 1948 to 1951. In addition to his reportage, he also photographed many French artists including Giacometti, Cocteau, Leger, Braque, and Picasso.
