("Love on the Left Bank" as it's English edition is entitled. This is the 1st edition German.)
Ed van der Elsken
Description: Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 1956; First Edition (published simultaneously in English, German and Dutch) First Printing (subsequent printings were designated as such on dust jacket); Original black cloth with silver spine lettering in pictorial dust jacket and mylar cover; quarto with 112 unpaginated pages of stunning black & white photographic illustrations.
"A story in photographs about Paris - the Paris of the young men and girls who haunt the Left Bank. They dine on half a loaf, smoke hashish, sleep in parked cars or on benches under the plane trees, sometimes borrowing a hotel room from a luckier friend to shelter their love. Some of them write, or paint, or dance."
Condition: Very Good Book; Boards and interior are clean with no markings, tears, rips, stains or creases. The FFEP has some minor unevenness or rippling in Near Very Good Dust jacket, now protected with a plastic jacket, with some edge wear and half inch loss near the top at the spine on the front panel. There is also slight loss at the bottom of the spine DJ and a half inch tear to the top of the rear DJ panel. Illustrations are stunningly beautiful with the Artist's well known contrast of tone.
Reference: Parr & Badger I:245 - “Ed van der Elsken was the best known internationally of the Dutch photographers of the 1950s and 60s due in no small measure to this book, which took the genre of the Dutch photonovel to a new level, and announced the presence in Europe of a stream-of-consciousness photographer on a par with William Klein… The book remains an important and influential early example of a genre that has become increasingly popular in the late 20th century—the diaristic mode”
Roth, The Book of 101 Books, 146/47: Van der Elsken’s images of “artists, addicts, deadbeats, would-be intellectuals and dealers who… lived for the moment” were shaped into his first work at the urging of Edward Steichen, who featured the young photographer in a landmark 1953 MoMA exhibit. His “blend of informal photojournalism and diaristic note-taking set a precedent for the sort of engaged personal book works that Larry Clark and Nan Goldin would make decades later”
The Open Book, 168/69: “The book’s layout accentuates the various photographic methods”
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"Cave" meant a home for both the tangible touch of beautiful objects and a cozy virtual den for armchair exploration. "Modern" starts with the art and literature that went beyond realistic depictions to expressive use of color, non-traditional materials, and new techniques and mediums. Our focus has evolved to be on important pieces by cultural innovators that take their work in new, unexpected, and modern directions. |