Sunday Morning Inspiration – Paris in Black and White

In early 1946, photographer Ed Clark journeyed to Paris to record the look and the feel of the French capital less than a year after the end of World War II. The pictures he made there chronicle not the cheerful, bawdy Paris of the popular imagination, but a place that was a “grim and depressing disappointment” for any visitors expecting the Paris of Maxim’s, the Ritz, the Folies Bergère, the Moulin Rouge and the city’s other legendary, libidinous diversions.

The Parisians themselves, meanwhile, were “cold, hungry, confused and tired above all, tired too busy keeping themselves alive to bother much about entertaining. The typical American GI in Paris at the time felt cheated. Where was the Paris he had heard about?

All photos (c) Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

  • Street scene / Paris
  • Painting Sacre-Coeur from the ancient Rue Norvins in Montmartre
  • Arc de Triomphe
  • The Arc de Triomphe
  • Scene on the Seine.
  • View along Quai du Louvre (today Quai François Mitterrand) down the Seine toward Ponte Des Arts with the Eiffel Tower in the distance, 1946.
  • Pont Alexandre III bridge.
  • Passerelle Debilly bridge on a foggy winter day with the Eiffel Tower in the background.
  • Exiting the Metro
  • Montmartre cemetery, winter 1946.
  • Moulin de la Galette, Paris
  • Churning up the Seine, past Notre Dame, on a gray winter day.
  • The Conciergerie, on the Ile de la Cité.
  • View across the Pont Alexandre III bridge toward the Grand Palace.
  • View of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Coeur.
  • Near the Pont Neuf steps.
  • Rowboats on the banks of the Seine.
  • A small sister of the Statue of Liberty beside the Seine, 1946.
  • The famous stalls along the Seine
  • Selling flowers on the banks of the Seine.