"THE MOST POTENT AND POWERFUL PHOTOGRAPHER ALIVE TODAY"

KOUDELKA, Josef. Animal. Photographies de Josef Koudelka. (Amiens, France: Éditions Trois Cailloux, 1990). Quarto, original glossy black paper-covered portfolio, original metallic silver sleeve, 18 heliogravures (9-1/2 by 12 inches), loose as issued, 4-page booklet signed on the rear page. $1600.

Signed limited first edition of the fourth volume in the acclaimed Trois Cailloux “porte-folio” series, number 536 of 700 copies signed by Koudelka on the booklet limitation page, with 18 exhibition-size heliogravures, an exceptional collection by the “most potent and powerful photographer alive today” (British Journal of Photography).

This exquisite portfolio of 18 exhibition-size heliogravures by Josef Koudelka imagines a world where isolated animals roam, soar or linger in a landscape free of humanity—though not its imprint. Featuring iconic images such as Koudelka's "photograph of a dead crow hanging from a horizontal barbed wire, the very image that Robert Delpire had chosen for the cover of Josef Koudelka (1984)" (Afterimage), this elegant edition of Animal confirms the profound vision of "the most potent and powerful photographer alive today" (British Journal of Photography). As in works such as Gypsies (1975) and Black Triangle (1994), Koudelka's distinctively "rich, dark-toned and sumptuous photographs… [are] melodramatic and tragic, serious in the best sense of the word" (Parr & Badger II:75, I:230). Signed limited first edition, number 537 of 700 copies (with an additional 26 reserved copies, lettered A to Z). Text by Ludvik Vaculik in French. See Open Book, 304.

A fine signed copy.