Couple with Baby, Paris by Lou Stettner

Over the course of his eight-decade career, Louis Stettner (1922 - 2016) created a singular approach to photographing everyday life. Born in Brooklyn, Stettner began working as a photographer in the 1930s and served in the U.S. Army in World War II before moving to Paris in 1947. There, he studied at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques, became friends with the influential photographer Brassaï, and developed a unique point of view that melded the boldness of American street photography with the softer humanism more characteristic of his Paris contemporaries. For the rest of his life, he traveled between New York and Paris — his “two loves,” as he called them — constantly finding new inspiration in that geographical duality.