ROBERT DOISNEAU ^©  

(Gentilly, 1912 - Montrouge, 1994)

Cm 30 x 40

Signed on recto in ink

Framed (dark blunt wood with plexi) size cm 49 x 59 x 1

Original provenance: Christie’s, New York USA

It has become one of Robert Doisneau’s most famous photographs. A world wide success reproduced on postcards, posters, and even on counterpanes and cushion covers. And yet, for a long time, this picture, one of a series taken for an article in time on the lovers of Paris was not one of his most popular photographs. The Eighties nostalgia for the Fifties, blended its romanticism and lust for life with a yearning for a Paris that no longer existed and the feeling of “l’amour, toujours l’amour”. It escapes being a cliché, standing out from the bleak photographs of today because of the way it makes us believe we can grab a tiny moment where place and time have no meaning and which only the lovers of this world have right to. This couple, a powerful symbol of passionate love is so convincing that many people have, in good faith, believed it was themselves.

Legal suits followed as some people realised they could make some money out of it putting the French slander laws to work. Doisneau was forced to confess that he had paid two actors pose for it. The scene of ideal happiness was fake. At which point, some people felt impelled to take Doisneau to task for the artificiality of the work despite its seeming so real and spontaneous. The somewhat contrived controversy fallacious photographic truth goes beyond the moment when the apparently real and the truly real meet. We have one question to ask, one that also holds true for all the images created by Eugene Smith. Would we be better off without this icon? As I’m not particularly keen on masochism, I don’t want to get in my pleasure’s way...

Christian Caujolle

© 2000 Photology Editions

100 to 2000 the century of Photoart