Chronicler of the 20th Century

The Martin-Gropius-Bau of Berlin presents with Robert Doisneau – Photographs. From Craft to Art works of the great humanist. From 9 December, 2016 until 5 March, 2017.

Very few photographers have become famous with just a single picture. Le Baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville is just such a picture. Robert Doisneau (1912–1994) took it in the spring of 1950 in front of a Parisian street café. The image of the couple kissing became the symbol of Paris as the ‘city of love’ and is one of the iconic photographs of the 20th century.

Doisneau’s oeuvre is comprised of approximately 350,000 photographs, including professionally crafted shots and others which have the force and charisma of an artistic solitaire. The exhibition provides an inside view of Doisneau’s work with around 100 selected photographs – most of them taken during the 1940s and 50s.

It shows his fascination for the normal, for the petit bourgeois and for the melancholic and fragile. To this day, Robert Doisneau stands for what is called ‘humanist photography’: a photography, which turns to people in their everyday life. The surprising moments of everyday life in the big city of Paris made him one of the most important chroniclers of the 20th century.

Please find more information at Martin-Gropius-Bau/Berliner Festspiele