I know dear friends that you are on the lookout for gift that will please and that for the more far-sighted you have already started. And what could be better than a beautiful book that Santa Claus brings, I ask you? When I say beautiful book, also understand those that we do not necessarily buy in normal times because a little expensive a little too big, the beautiful albums in short. Here is one that will delight photo lovers and that I wanted to share with you.
It’s “René Maltête – Poetic inventory” published by Du Chêne editions. So who was this Maltête? Good question, I totally ignored it too. It was a photographer born in 1930 who crisscrossed France on paid vacation. We will discover in his photos a France which oscillates between progress and traditions. He is fascinated by the working-class and agricultural worlds and gives us many pictures of his native Brittany. We can say it is in the vein of the great humanist photographers, those who loved to photograph men and women in their daily lives.
This current was very successful until the 60s and we could say that the most famous was surely Robert Doisneau. Who hasn’t seen her “town hall kiss” before? In this movement, what they depict the most in their images are the simple pleasures of life but also the daily difficulties of the French after the war.
This movement was very French but its photos were loved all over the world. Very fashionable at that time too, Willy Ronis or Henri Cartier Bresson. But it is true that Maltête is a little missed out on notoriety and yet, as we can see with this album, he was able to capture the essentials of life in this series of photos taken between 1950 and 1970. We often see there a touch of humor which often makes us smile moreover, a little, this time, comparable to the leg of Jacques Tati. He is also and, more surprisingly, attached to the environment.
I highly recommend this trip to playfulness, towards another era with the album “René Maltête – Invention poétique”, published by Du Chêne.