“A PHOTOGRAPHER TO HIS FINGERTIPS, THE KIND THAT SEEKS AND FINDS POETRY EVERYWHERE”

STRAND, Paul and ROY, Claude. La France de Profil. Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre, (1952). Quarto, original gray stiff paper boards, original pictorial dust jacket. $1200.

First edition of Strand’s luminous tribute to France and its people, with 75 striking black-and-white héliogravures, mostly full-page, accompanied with text in French by poet Claude Roy. From the collection of award-winning photojournalist Peter Turnley.

"In the early 1950s Paul Strand moved from the United States to Europe, largely to escape the spectre of McCarthyism. Following the success of his book, Time in New England (1950), he published a succession of volumes along similar lines… but this volume… is different from the others and occupies a singular place… Strand was a photographer to his fingertips, the kind that seeks and finds poetry everywhere. La France de Profil exemplifies this to perfection" (Parr & Badger I, 207). Strand's photographs are lyrically interwoven with text by French poet Claude Roy, and "the combination couldn't be more engaging… The gravure reproduction in La France de Profil was overseen by Strand… The results are superb: crisp, radiantly dark, and with an unusual depth" (Roth, 136). Text in French. Without fragile glassine. Open Book, 158. From the collection of Peter Turnley, acclaimed photojournalist for Newsweek, Life and Harper's Magazine, who has covered "almost every important international news event of the last 15 years" (New York Times). Owner signature.

A near-fine copy, with only an inoffensive crease to last few leaves.