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Willy Ronis: Belleville Ménilmontant  (First Edition!)
Willy Ronis: Belleville Ménilmontant  (First Edition!)

Willy Ronis: Belleville Ménilmontant (First Edition!)

Auction Winner: nazlow

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Bid # High Bid Name Time (MT)
1 $245 nazlow 2:59:52 Oct 11
    
    
Estimated Value: $400  –  $500

Auction Ended: Oct 11, 2012 10:30 am MT


Belleville Menilmontant. Photographs by Willy Ronis. Text by Pierre Mac Orlan. Claud Arthaud, editor. Type design by Roger Excoffon. B. Arthaud, Paris, 1954. 96 pp. First edition. Vol. II in the collection "Les Imaginaires". Printed stiff French-fold wrapper over stiff boards. Printed bellyband. 93 gravure reproductions printed by Braun & Co. Original acetate protector.


Willy Ronis is one of the last of the surviving documentary photographers in the humanist tradition of Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson. During the 40s and 50s he was a prolific chronicler of many corners of French social life, especially the working people of Paris. He tended to wear his politics on his sleeve, often photographing strikes, demonstrations, occupations of factories and the like. For this reason, he also kept his distance from the American and British press. In this scarce volume, Pierre Mac Orlan offers his paean to the authenticity of the working class neighborhoods of Belleville-Menilmontant. Ronis discovered the area through Daniel Pipart, a painter and friend of his wife, who kept a studio there. He visited and photographed regularly from 1947-1950, with the aim of one day making a book from the images.

Ronis's images, like countless Realist artists before him, aim to capture the poetry of the streets. Ever respectful of his subjects, Ronis's gaze is always affectionate and discrete. Unlike many documentary photographers, who search out freaks and weirdoes, Ronis seeks out the typical and the ordinary. Yet, beneath the surface, one senses a subtle sense of melancholy and muted nostalgia. A masterpiece of book design and typography! The images contained in Belleville-Menilmontant are certainly among Ronis's finest and provide an essential point of entry into his work.
Item Condition
Near Fine+; tiny area of abrasion along joint; light wear to extremities; small chip to acetate at crown of spine.


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