Carrefour rue Vilin / rue Piat, Belleville by Willy Ronis

Willy Ronis (born Aug. 14, 1910, Paris, France—died Sept. 12, 2009, Paris) crafted powerful black-and-white images in which he captured the rich texture of everyday working-class life in post-World War II Paris. Ronis, the son of Eastern European Jewish refugees, studied law at the Sorbonne while preparing for his preferred career in music. When his father became terminally ill in 1932, however, he took over the family photography business. Ronis moved away from formal portraits to work as a photojournalist until 1940, when he escaped to the south from the advancing German troops and took a job with a touring theatrical company. After liberation (1944), he and his wife, artist Marie-Anne Lansiaux, returned to Paris, where in 1946 he joined the Rapho photo agency. In the early 1950s, Ronis became known in the U.S. through his commissions for Life magazine and the 1951 Museum of Modern Art exhibition Five French Photographers (Ronis, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Brassai, and Izis Bidermanas). His many honours included the Kodak Prize (1947), the gold medal at the Venice Biennale (1957), the Nadar Prize (1981), and the title Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (1985). Ronis donated his works to France in 1983 but continued producing images well into his 90s.

Willy Ronis: Obituary’ - The Guardian, Sept. 16, 2009

Paris Through the Eyes of Willy Ronis - The New York Review of Books, June 30, 2018

The Photographer Who Saw Paris With His Heart in His Eyes - New York Times, April 27, 2018