Written By: Ben Cosgrove, Liz Ronk

In early 1946, photographer Ed Clark journeyed to Paris (“the grand courtesan of all cities,” LIFE called the ancient town) 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, as LIFE told its readers, 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?”

The Paris [of Clark’s photos] is the Paris of the Parisians and of anyone else who will take her. She is unadorned, somber and beautiful. Most of the pictures were taken in mist or rain, when the sharp, clean lines of the city’s spires and the bridges pierce through a curtain of gray. This is the Paris that neither Germans nor GIs could change. Even in the age of the atom bomb, she is as indestructible as the river.

For his part, like countless travelers before him through the centuries, Ed Clark fell under the spell cast by the great, gorgeous city. In fact, the Tennessee native once claimed that, at the time he got the assignment, “I didn’t know where France was, let alone Paris.”

But when he came upon a young painter in Montmartre (slide #6 in this gallery, and Clark’s personal favorite photo from his entire career), he found it “so beautiful that I just started shooting.”

View along Quai du Louvre (today Quai François Mitterrand) down the Seine toward Ponte Des Arts with the Eiffel Tower in the distance, 1946. Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Arc de Triomphe Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Churning up the Seine, past Notre Dame, on a gray winter day. Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Exiting the Metro Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

The Arc de Triomphe Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Painting Sacre-Coeur from the ancient Rue Norvins in Montmartre, Paris. Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Moulin de la Galette, Paris Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

The famous stalls along the Seine Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

View across the Pont Alexandre III bridge toward the Grand Palace Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

A small sister of the Statue of Liberty beside the Seine, 1946. Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Street scene Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Near the Pont Neuf steps Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Scene on the Seine Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Selling flowers on the banks of the Seine Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Pont Alexandre III bridge Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

The Conciergerie, on the Ile de la Cité Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Rowboats on the banks of the Seine Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

View of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Coeur Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Montmartre cemetery, winter 1946. Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images