"PARIS, AS A KINDLY HOAX, PRETENDS TO BE ITSELF": FIRST EDITION OF KERTÉSZ’S DAY OF PARIS

KERTESZ, Andre. Day of Paris. New York: J.J. Augustin, (1945). Small quarto, original tan cloth, original photographic dust jacket. $4000.

First edition of Kertész’s first book published in America, with 103 black-and-white photogravure plates (many double-page), featuring “some of Kertész’s most famous photos” (Roth).

"One of the most influential photographers of the 20th century… Andre Kertész helped change the way photographers and picture magazines look at the world and defined the use of the hand-held camera" (New York Times). Day of Paris, the first book Kertész published in America, contains "some of Kertész's most famous photos," taken before he was forced to leave Europe at the outbreak of WWII (Roth, 114). "The keynote of Day of Paris is elegance… Kertész' book loosely follows a familiar scenario, a 'day in the life' of Paris, beginning with the gargoyles of Notre Dame and giving us a photographic modernist's tour of the city, nodding appreciatively at Henri Cartier-Bresson along the way, and ending up with Brassaï in a series of nocturnal views" (Parr & Badger I:200). Text by editor George Davis; jacket design by Alexis Brodovitch and Peter Pollack. Open Book, 138.

Interior fine, discoloration to cloth boards; scarce original dust jacket with a few closed tears along folds, shallow chipping, toning to spine. An extremely good copy of this influential work.