Doisneau et la musique

The musical sense of Doisneau. An original exhibition, composed by over two hundred photographs, mostly unpublished, that reveals an unexpected side of the great master of photography.

With a Rolleiflex strapped over his shoulder, Robert Doisneau spent a great deal of time walking throughout the southern suburbs of Paris where, in the day, music was everywhere. From musicians to brass bands, he sought to show all that gave the streets their festivity. He worked for Vogue magazine from 1949 to 1951, where he photographed all the star singers of the day (Juliette Gréco, Charles Aznavour, Georges Brassens). While working for Pierre Betz, Editor-in-Chief of Le Point magazine, in 1961, he photographed the musicians Pierre Boulez, Pierre Schaeffer, Henri Dutilleux and André Jolivet. He liked to take pictures of artists in their daily work, like Maria Callas at rehearsal, or François Baschet and Jacques Lasry in their workspace. The collaboration between the brilliant cellist and skier Maurice Baquet and Robert Doisneau opened up a new sphere of playfulness, freedom and creativity for the photographer. When they met just after the war, they immediately began working together on a book, published in 1981 under the title Ballade pour Violoncelle et Chambre Noire.
Robert Doisneau used to walk around Paris’ Saint Germain, which he called « the new Montparnasse ». He spent nights following and photographing jazzmen who came to play in the basement nightclubs, such as Bill Coleman, Eartha Kitt, Big Bill Bronzy. 
And in the end, in the 80s – 90s, the portraits of the new generation of singers, from Les Rita Mitsouko to Les Negresses Vertes.
The exhibition is accompanied by a great soundtrack: the original one composed by Moriarty, the French songs from the 50s, the Jazz rhythms from the Saint-Germain-des-Prés clubs.