Robert Doisneau Portfolio Book

This Taschen Portfolio features 14 stunning prints by one of the world's foremost photographers, Robert Doisneau. Doisneau continues to tell stories full of feeling, poetry and humor, and to enchant us with his capacity to communicate that implicit but fleeting relationship - a tender complicity - that made him one with what he photographed.

Born in Gentilly on April 14, 1912 between 'Bièvres' and the now vanished fortifications, just outside Paris, Doisneau remained a denizen of the suburbs till his death: the Montrouge apartment that he took in 1937 remained his home for the rest of his life. The particular interest he took in working-class milieux and environments led to images rich in poetic social realism, images that profoundly influenced the film and literature of his time. In 1950, the magazine Life commissioned a set of images of the lovers of Paris from the agency Rapho. The result was the famous series of 'Kisses', including the 'Baiser de l'Hôtel de Ville', which has become Doisneau's signature image. The 'Kisses' were for the most part staged, but display a wonderful complicity with the participants in this typically Parisian theatre. Always the loner, Doisneau has continued the rounds of his own chosen area between Paris, Montrouge and Gentilly and there are now more than 400.000 pictures to testify to his perambulations and discoveries. He is the true piéton de Paris.