This book shows the beauty and degradation of 1930s Paris, with photographs of everything from the Eiffel Tower and carousels to the struggles of the poor in the city.
André Kertész’ scarce second photobook, Paris, precedes his well-known Day of Paris (1945) by over a decade and features the first publication of many images reprinted there—such as “Les Berges du Quai du Louvre,” “Quai D’Orsay” and “La Fontaine Médicis.” “Like so many other exiled European artists, Kertész left Paris before the German invasion,” not long after publication of this premiere work (Roth, 114). As John Szarkowski notes, ever since Kertész “began photographing in 1912 he sought the revelation of the elliptical view, the unexpected detail, the ephemeral moment… a sense of the sweetness of life, a free and childlike pleasure in the beauty of the world and the preciousness of sight” (Looking, 92). It is here, in this luminous, rarely found photobook, that we find “the best of Kertész’ humanist documentary imagery, made between 1925 and 1935 when he lived in Paris” (Parr & Badger I:200). Text in French by noted critic Pierre Mac Orlan. First edition, published in wrappers only; as issued without dust jacket. See Open Book, 138.