Moi Parizh (My Paris)
Moscow: IZOGIZ, 1933. First edition. Hardcover. Oblong Duodecimo. 235 (3)pp. Original blue paper-covered boards with white and blue lettering on cover, white on spine, in original dustjacket with photomontage, black lettering on spine; housed in red half leather over red cloth clamshelbox with gilt adornment on cloth, gilt lettering and ruling on brown leather labels of spine; raised bands.
Designed and edited by El Lissitzky. Dustjacket and three additional photomontages by Lissitzky, incorporating Ehrenburg's photographs and additional one hundred and nine reproductions of Ehrenburg photographs. "Moi Parizh is a significant addition to the photographic bibliography of this most photographed of cities, made by a man who lived there for many years. It constitutes a highly dispassionate look at the city that usually provokes at least a degree of romantic sentiment from visitors and residents alike." (Parr/Badger)
Ehrenburg, a most prolific writer, journalist and revolutionary propagandist, published this title some two or three years after MoÏ Ver's Paris. Shot with a Leica, the collection includes street candids as well as a series of street photography highlighting the distress of the populace, often likened to the work of Atget, and in contrast to the common romantic view of Paris as a bourgeois city. "Ehrenburg also contributes a dry social commentary on his pictures, which have the liveliness and sometimes the gaucherie of similar early street images by Walker Evans or Ben Shahn... Ehrenburg contributes a frank, unsparing view of the Parisian proletariat, of which the socialist dissident Atget himself would surely have approved." (Parr/Badger). Scarce first edition in original dustjacket.
Text in Russian. Dustjacket with light wear along edges, small chips, light creasing and closed tears along edges. Partially reinforced with clear tape on inside. Good to very good+ condition. Item #51986
Parr/Badger Vol. 1, page 132; The Open Book, page 112; The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934 No. 1024.
Price: $25,000.00