Exhibition

After the success of the exhibitions dedicated to Paris at the time of the Impressionists (May to July 2011: 198,000 visitors), The Paris Commune (April-May 2011: 83,000 visitors) and The Banks of the Seine (Paris-sur-Seine, 1,500 visitors a day since 4 July 2011), Paris City Council is continuing its exploration of the capital’s history with the eye-witness view of the iconic Les Halles district by one of the 20th Century’s greatest photographers.

Robert Doisneau took these photos of the Les Halles district from 1933 and followed its transformation right up to the 60s. Before it became a shopping centre, Les Halles was “the belly of Paris”, a great, lively market teeming with people and life.

You can see these outstanding “Doisneau Paris Les Halles” photos in the Reception Room at Paris Town Hall from 2 February to 28 April 2012.
N.B. the catalogue published by Flammarion contains 185 photographs by Robert Doisneau accompanied by text written by Vladimir Vasak about the predictable death of one of Paris’ finest districts.

Products published for the exhibition 

For this exhibition, Nouvelles Images is publishing 8 Postcards, size 10.5 x 14.8 cm.

Biographical information 

Robert Doisneau immortalised “Paris in black and white”, its suburbs, streets, cafés and inhabitants. He was a photographer of intimate moments in the lives of ordinary working people, and yet he was born into a middle-class family in Gentilly on 14 April 1912. He studied Graphic Arts at the “Ecole Estienne” and graduated as an engraver-lithographer in 1929.  Trained in photography by André Vigneau, he sold his first photographic report on the Paris flea-markets to Excelsior in 1932. In 1934, he married Pierrette Chaumaison, with whom he had two daughters, Annette and Francine.

After an unhappy experience as an industrial photographer for Renault in Boulogne-Billancourt, he decided to become a freelance illustrative photographer in 1939. He then met Charles Rado, the founder of the Rapho agency. In 1946, he became a freelance photographer for this well-known agency, having been an active member of the Resistance during the Second World War.

He died in Montrouge on 1st April 1994.