“ONE OF THE BEST-KNOWN TITLES IN PHOTOBOOK HISTORY”

RENGER-PATZSCH, Albert. Die Welt ist Schön. München: Kurt Wolf Verlag, (1928). Quarto, original gilt-stamped blue cloth. $1500.

First edition of Renger-Patzsch’s influential work, sparking “one of Germany’s most pervasive modernist movements” and advancing the cause of a ‘New Objectivity’ in photography, with 100 splendid full-page halftones.

“One of the best-known titles in photobook history, Die Welt ist Schön (The World is Beautiful) was originally going to be called Die Dinge (Things)… Seen by many as the epitome of the ‘straight’ photographic ethos because of its apparent stark objectivity, Renger-Patzsch’s” work, like that of Karl Blossfeldt, explores with extraordinary resonance the complexity of the close-up (Parr & Badger I:97). The 100 beautiful full-page duotones in Die Welt ist Schön “have an unwavering precision that is almost painful in its purity” (New York Times). Renger-Patzsch’s preferred title of Die Dinge “was more in keeping with his idea of a strictly ‘photographic photography’: pictures that were above all straightforward, easily apprehended documents, free of the distracting artistic interventions of his avant-garde contemporaries… The New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) style he sparked was one of Germany’s most pervasive modernist movements” (Roth, 50). Text in German. With introduction by Carl Georg Heise. Without extremely scarce printed dustjacket, band and card slipcase. Open Book, 68.

Images fine and fresh; light edge-wear, faint toning to spine. Near-fine condition.