Germaine Krull - 100 x Paris (ALL 4 DUSTJACKET VARIANTS) - 1929

UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY for high-end-quality collector's to purchase ALL FOUR (!) VERY BEAUTIFUL and
SUPER SCARCE BOOKS AND DUSTJACKET VARIANTS of "100 x Paris" book by Germaine Krull - in ONE (!) LOT.

Germaine Krull (1897-1985), a German-dutch photographer, famous through "Metal", lived in Paris since 1926.

- Hans-Michael Koezle, "Eyes on Paris, Paris in photobook 1890 till today", page 84-85
- Christian Bouqueret, "Paris. Les Livres de Photographie. Des Années 1920 Aux Années 1950", pages 35-37

ALL FOUR DUSTJACKETS HIGHLY IMPRESSIVE, NOT RESTORED AND BETTER THAN USUAL.

ALL FOUR BOOKS in WONDERFUL SEPIA, reproduced in BREATH-TAKING PHOTOGRAVURE PRINTING.

Welcome to the auction by Anatole Desachy (France) and Ecki Heuser (Germany) - in honor of „French photobooks“.
To celebrate the 55th edition of ‘’Les Rencontres d’Arles’’ - we have gathered 110 books (55 each). ´

IF YOU WIN MORE THAN 1 OF MY BOOKS IN THIS AUCTION, YOU WILL PAY ONLY 1 X SHIPPING COSTS - WORLDWIDE.

Verlag der Reihe, Berlin-Westend. 1929. First edition, first printing.

Four paperbacks with four different dustjackets. 172 x 248 mm (each). 528 pages (132 pages each). 100 photos (each) in black and white. Photos: Germaine Krull. Foreword: Florent Fels. Text in French, English, German.

Condition:
Inside all four books better than usual; two books excellent, fresh and flawless, clean with no marks and with no foxing, one book with bigger stain at the top of the first page, otherwise fresh and flawless and one book with a beautiful Ex-Libris on the first page and with foxing on the first two pages, no other remarkable flaws or defects. All dustjackets with only smaller imperfections (see pictures) and highly impressive. Overall the four volumes in fine, better than usual condition.

WONDERFUL COMPLETE SET of Germaine Krull's "100 x Paris" photobook -
with the highly impressive, extrem scarce original dustjackets.
COLLECTOR'S LOT.

"In the 1920s, Germaine Krull made her mark on the history of photography with her photo reportages. Using oblique perspectives and cropping, she developed her very own visual language. Her reportages symbolise socio-political empathy.
Born on 20 November 1897, she trained at the Munich School of Photography until 1918, documenting everyday life in the big city with her camera, but also developing a sense for the artistic experiments of the avant-garde. Friends with writers, theatre people and filmmakers, the photographer first lived and worked in Berlin, then in Amsterdam and from 1926 onwards in the French metropolis. In 1967, the only surviving audio document was made at the Cinémathèque française on the occasion of an exhibition that André Malraux, the Minister of Culture, personally organised. However, Germaine Krull is not interested in glamour and high honours, she emphasises: "Photography is a profession. A craft.
After completing her apprenticeship in 1918, the photographer initially put her profession on the back burner and became politically active. But the Munich Soviet Republic was bloodily suppressed and Germaine Krull fled to Moscow. Back in Germany, she opened her own studio in Berlin in 1923. But it was only after she moved to Amsterdam with documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens, where she discovered her penchant for technical installations, quay walls, cranes and warehouses, that she made her breakthrough.
Having now arrived in Paris, the photographer presents the portfolio "Métal". The writer Pierre MacOrlan is enthusiastic: "Whether Germaine Krull is transforming a machine landscape into a symphony or playing with the lights of Paris, she reveals secret details."
The photographer emphasises the beauty of ball bearings or transformers with multiple exposures or black and white compositions that are as objective as they are surrealistically alienated. André Kertész, Man Ray and Berenice Abbott, who established the photographic image as a new, independent art form in 1928 with the "First Independent Salon of Photography", worked in a similar way.
Germaine Krull was one of the participants, but found her own way for her profession: "It is neither painting nor fantasy. The photographer is a witness. The witness of his era. The real photographer is the witness of all days, the reporter."
The virtuoso reporter Germaine Krull becomes the mainstay of the magazine "VU". With her subjective photographic eye and a precisely controlled camera, temperament and technique, art and craftsmanship merge. Highlights of this combination of formal, aesthetic creativity with socio-political empathy are reportages such as "The Women Workers of Paris". For the philosopher Walter Benjamin, Germaine Krull thus stands on a par with photographers such as August Sander or Wilhelm Bloßfeldt in her very own way: "The photographers who did not come to photography by chance, not out of convenience from the fine arts, today form the avant-garde among their peers."
As if she had achieved her goal, Germaine Krull said goodbye to photography. After working as a war reporter during the liberation of France, she travelled through Southeast Asia in 1946 and opened a hotel in Bangkok. It was not until 1960 that the now successful businesswoman picked up her camera again to document relics and monuments of Asian cultures.
Germaine Krull, who died in Wetzlar in 1985, leaves a piece of advice for future generations of photographers: "Photography is not a machine. Unfortunately, you are tied to the machine, the camera, the film, the development. But everyone has to feel their image. And then take one or at most two photos. Just clicking, clicking, clicking - that doesn't get you anywhere."
(Deutschlandfunk)