Willy Ronis is a photographer, received the Président d'Honneur of the Association Nationale des Reporters Photographes Illustrateurs.
Background
Willy Ronis was born on August 14, 1910, in Paris, France. His father, Emmanuel Ronis, was a Jewish refugee from Odessa, and his mother, Ida Gluckmann, was a refugee from Lithuania, both escaped from the pogroms. His father opened a photography studio in Montmartre, and his mother gave piano lessons.
Education
Willy Ronis earned a Bachelor of Arts. Returning from compulsory military service in 1932, Ronis to take over the family portrait business. The work of photographers, Alfred Stieglitz and Ansel Adams inspired Ronis to begin exploring photography. His father died in 1936, whereupon Willy Ronis sold the business and set up as a freelance photographer, his first work being published in Regards.
Career
In 1937 Willy Ronis met David Seymour and Robert Capa, and did his first work for Plaisir de France. With Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ronis belonged to Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires, and remained a man of the left. In 1946 Willy Ronis joined the photo agency Rapho, with Brassaï, Robert Doisneau, and Ergy Landau, and was instrumental in forming the professional association Le Groupe des XV. He became the first French photographer to work for Life.
Willy Ronis began teaching in the 1950s and taught at the School of Fine Arts in Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, and Saint Charles, Marseilles.
In 1953, Edward Steichen included Willy Ronis, Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Izis, and Brassaï in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art titled Five French Photographers.
Willy Ronis continued to live and work in Paris, although he stopped photography in 2001 since he required a cane to walk and could not move around with his camera. He also worked on books for the publisher Taschen.
Willy Ronis died at age 99, on September 12, 2009.