The Last Humanist

© Willy Ronis

Willy Ronis, died on 12 September, aged 'just' 99. As BJP puts it 'Willy Ronis was one of the last key survivors of a group pf photographers known as the French humanists who changed the face of the medium from the 1930's until the 1960's (BJP, 30 September 2009, p.12). Humanist photography became the dominant form of documentary photography in the years following WWII (Bate, D. 2009, p.48) and reached its peak with the Family of Man Exhibition at the MOMA in New York in 1955. Out of the 2.5 million pictures submitted, Edward Steichen, head of the museum's photography department, selected about 500 images from 68 countries (Marien, M.W, 2006, p.308). For more on humanist photography see (Hamilton, Peter 'Representing the Social: France and Frenchness in Post-War Humanist Photography' in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, Ed. Stuart Hall, Sage: 2003 pp.75-150).