In La Seyne-sur-Mer, in the Var, the Villa Tamaris exhibits 200 photos by the French humanist photographer. On this occasion, we met Jean Brosseron who was, in 1952, the little boy in the iconic photo by Willy Ronis.
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Baptized “Willy Ronis by Willy Ronis”, the exhibition is a retrospective of the immense work of the photographer who, like Robert Doisneau, devoted his career to immortalizing the daily lives of his contemporaries. Shots that have gone around the world, like his most famous photo, titled The Little Parisian.
“My mother did not believe me”
The little Parisian with his baguette in the streets of Paris is Jean Brosseron. At the time, in 1952, he was 5 years old. He remembers it like it was yesterday. Willy Ronis had asked him to run out of the bakery. “Happy to be of service and interesting, I ran with my wand. The gentleman took his pictures and then I went home. Very proud, I told my mother, but she didn’t tell me. ‘did not believe and answered me: ‘I am the Queen of England'”, says, amused, the septuagenarian.
According to Willy Ronis, this shot is the only one for which he asked his model to stage himself. “He immediately turned to the people you meet in the street. The living people who make the life of the city. He was not at all interested in what today is called , celebrities or movie stars”, reports Stéphane Kovalsky, the grandson of Willy Ronis.
The 200 shots selected for this exhibition are part of the 600 that the artist had chosen to make his “photographic testament”. From 1985, Willy Ronis immersed himself in his collection to select what he considered to be the essentials of his work. He produced a series of six albums, part of which is presented in the exhibition.
Exposure Willy Ronis by Willy Ronis – Villa Tamaris TPM Art Center, 295, avenue de la Grande Maison, La Seyne-sur-Mer (Var) – Until September 17, 2023.