As we celebrate the bicentennial of photography this year, Lyon is hosting one of its greatest practitioners with great fanfare. Organized under the auspices of the Atelier Robert Doisneau, founded by his daughters, Annette Doisneau and Francine Deroudille, the exhibition traces the photographer’s entire career, from his beginnings in the 1930s through 1992. In total, 400 original photographs—some of them never before seen—await visitors, which is more than one for every day of the year: a sort of Advent calendar that we’re already eager to devour—with our eyes, of course.
Robert Doisneau, Instants donnés
The atmosphere of bistros, children’s emotions captured in the moment, portraits of artists or ordinary passersby… Doisneau’s work is a kind of visual poem. Too often reduced to nostalgia for the atmosphere of the *Petit Nicolas* books or Jacques Tati’s films, Doisneau’s photographs are in fact much deeper. Througha dozen themes, the exhibition creates a dialogue between his most iconic shots and more intimate series devoted to social photography, photojournalism, and advertising.
While the focus will naturally be on the photographs, the exhibition will also offer visitors the chance to discover a whole series of personal items and exceptional archival documents. To deepen the immersive experience, the exhibition will feature various immersive spaces, from his studio to the agency, including the darkroom, where the steps of the silver gelatin printing process will be explained. Finally, to delve into the photographer’s creative process, visitors can listen to an audio guide featuring Robert Doisneau’s own voice describing some thirty photographs .
It took a venue as iconic as La Sucrière to host an event of this magnitude. The 7,000 m² of recently renovated space make it a flagship venue for Lyon’s cultural scene. Following the success of the Titanic exhibition (over 200,000 visitors) held on the premises, the Robert Doisneau exhibition is expected to be just as successful.
Unpublished photos of Lyon in the 1950s
The icing on this already well-decorated cake is that visitors will be able to discover a whole series of photos taken here in Lyon for *Vogue* magazine in 1950. Place Bellecour, the banks of the Rhône, the Croix-Rousse district, and Old Lyon… these photos will be showcased in a display that is, once again, unlike anything seen before.
For that is precisely the photographer’s genius: making us nostalgic for an era we’re now too young to have experienced, while at the same time presenting us with photographs that, paradoxically, haven’t aged a bit…
Information:
📅 Date: starting September 4, 2026
📍 Location: La Sucrière, 49 Quai Rambaud, Lyon 2
