80 Amazing Black and White Photographs Show the World From the 1940s to the 1960s

Édouard Boubat was born in Montmartre, Paris in 1923. He studied typography and graphic arts at the École Estienne and worked for a printing company before becoming a photographer. In 1943 he was subjected to service du travail obligatoire, forced labour of French people in Nazi Germany, and witnessed the horrors of World War II. He took his first photograph after the war in 1946 and was awarded the Kodak Prize the following year. He travelled the world for the French magazine Réalités, where his colleague was Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, and later worked as a freelance photographer. French poet Jacques Prévert called him a “peace correspondent” as he was humanist, apolitical and photographed uplifting subjects. His son Bernard Boubat is also a photographer.

Boubat died on June 30th, 1999, at the age of 75. Below are some of his amazing photographs that capture everyday life around the world from between the 1940s and 1960s.