Willy Ronis: The Whirlwind of Life

An emblematic figure of humanist photography, Willy Ronis (1910-2009) defined this French school as “the gaze of the photographer who loves human beings”. Influenced by music and painting, he composed his images with an artist’s precision, capturing everyday life with rare sensitivity and unconcealed joy. He saw photography as a means of sublimating life, asserting, “Sometimes it’s possible to snatch the sublime moment and derive immense satisfaction from it.”

From Paris to Provence, via London and Venice, his lens captured social struggles, hopes for a better world after the Second World War, and glimpses of life found on the streets. This exhibition at Galerie Rouge in Paris explores the diversity of his photographic work through emblematic images and others, less famous, that renew the way we look at his work.

Willy Ronis asserted his taste for subject diversity as a form of freedom: “I prefer to dabble in a bit of everything, even if it means focusing on what I like to do, and refusing what interests me less. To be free? Yes, but it’s not so much a question of freedom as a taste for different things.

The photographic prints exhibited in “Willy Ronis, Le tourbillon de la vie” (Willy Ronis, The Whirlwind of Life), come from the donation of Tina Vazquez, a person who was throughout his life a helper, a friend, an integral member of his family. This exhibition highlights the generosity of Willy Ronis and the friendship between the photographer and Ms. Vazquez.

More information on the Galerie Rouge website.