Willy Ronis (1910-2009)
Willy Ronis was a French photographer known for his black-and-white photography of postwar life in Paris and Provence, including images of labor, protest, and ordinary life. Born to a Jewish family, Ronis worked in his family’s photography studio and aspired to become a composer, although he took over the family business following his father’s terminal illness. He quickly took to the trade and photographed the city’s 1936 Bastille Day celebrations, shifting his focus from formal portraiture to photojournalism.
Following World War II, Ronis became the first French photographer to work for the American LIFE Magazine. He was included in the Family of Man exhibition curated by Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955 alongside Ansel Adams, Robert Frank, Gordon Parks, and Dorothea Lange, cementing his reputation among mid-century photographers.
Ronis’ works are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Tate, UK; the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago; the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama; and the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY, among others.