Willy Ronis died last week at the age of 99. He was the last leading representative of the postwar French humanist movement. The master of black and white published his works in French and U.S. magazines such as Regards, Time and Life. He Collaborated with the Rapho agency. As a professor, he teached at the Avignon art school and at the universities of Aix-en-Provence and Marseilles.
His musical education has a clear influence on his photographic production, defined as "choral harmony movements of the crowd..."
He began as a reporter linked to the Popular Front, inspired by the work of Hungarian Robert Capa, himself descent of a Jewish family and involved in the protests against the extreme right government.
Willy met and confronted Kertész, Brassaï, Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau. Despite his fame has been somewhat obscured by them, the Oxford Companion to the Photograph cites Ronis as "the photographer of Paris par excellence"
The poetry that emerges from his work is unsurpassed. One of his more popular portraiture is undoubtedly the "Nude Provençal (Provençal Nude)", part of a broader series of nudes of great delicacy. Here beside a reproduction of the cover of the monographic book published by Prestel - Willy Ronis / La vie en passant.