Willy Ronis
(1910-2009)
Á Menilmontant (Devant Chez Mestre), 1947
Gelatin silver print; printed 2005
Signed in ink in the margin; studio stamp, print date & title also on verso
Image size: 11 ½ x 10 ¼ inches
Paper size: 15 ¾ x 12 inches
Mat size: 20 x 16 inches
Condition: Excellent; ever so slight, and barely worth mentioning, small concave dimple in lower right margin, not affecting the image and visible only under close inspection
Retail: $5500
3/24: This print is
being offered far below cost as part of an estate sale.
Modern Print Prices:
16x12-inch Paper: $5500
16x20-inch Paper: $6800
BIO:
Willy Ronis (August 14, 1910 – September 12, 2009) was a French photographer. His best-known work shows life in post-war Paris and Provence.
In 1937 he met David Seymour and Robert Capa, and did his first work for Plaisir de France; in 1938–39 he reported on a strike at Citroen and traveled in the Balkans. With Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ronis belonged to Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Revolutionnaires, and remained a man of the left. In 1946 Ronis joined the photo agency Rapho, with Brassai, Robert Doisneau and Egry Laundau. Ronis became the first French photographer to work for Life.
Ronis' nudes and fashion work (for Vogue and Le Jardin des Modes) show his appreciation for natural beauty; meanwhile, he remained a principled news photographer, resigning from Rapho for a 25-year period when he objected to the hostile captioning by The New York Times to his photograph of a strike.
Despite stiff competition from Robert Doisneau and others, the Oxford Companion to the Photograph terms Ronis "the photographer of Paris par excellence".
In 1953, Edward Steichen included Ronis, Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Izis and Brassai in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art titled Five French Photographers. In 1955, Ronis was included in the The Family of Man exhibition. The Venice Biennale awarded him its Gold Medal in 1957.
Ronis began teaching in the 1950s, and taught at the School of Fine Arts in Avignon, Aix-en-Provence and Saint Charles, Marseilles. In 1979 he was awarded the Grand Prix des Arts et Lettres for Photography by the Minister for Culture. Ronis won the Prix Nadar in 1981 for his photobook, Sur le fil du hazard.
Ronis continued to live and work in Paris, although he stopped photography in 2001, since he required a cane to walk and could not move around with his camera. He also worked on books for the publisher Taschen.
In 2005–2006 the Paris City Hall held Willy Ronis in Paris, a retrospective exhibition of his work that had more than 500,000 visitors. There was also an exhibition at Rencontres d’Arles festival, Arles, France, in 2009. -- wikipedia