“AT THE FOREFRONT OF RADICAL MODERNISM”: SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF KRULL’S 100 X PARIS, 1929

KRULL, Germaine. 100 X Paris. Berlin: Verlag der Reihe, (1929). Quarto, original cream stiff paper wrappers, original photographic dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $3500.

First edition of Krull’s pioneering photobook of Paris in the 1920s, with 100 sepia-toned photogravure plates, including luminous views of the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, crowded street markets and Parisians strolling on the Bois de Boulogne.

"In the 1920s, Man Ray told Krull, 'Germaine, you and I are the greatest photographers of our time, I in the old sense and you in the modern one" (Roth, 46). Positioned "at the forefront of radical modernism… Germaine Krull worked in Berlin, Russia, Holland and Paris during the 1920s… Her views of industrial structures in Holland and Paris—including as a leitmotif that icon of modern engineering, the Eiffel Tower" show a photographer whose vision sought ever new horizons for the medium (Parr & Badger I:78, 95). As noted by her biographer Sichel, "Krull's greatest contribution as a photographer is the industrial, geometric abstractions that she did in Holland and France in the 1920s, the work for which she is best known… Her pioneering street work" in Paris (Germaine Krull) and her "euphoric view of industrial production"—as seen here in 100 X Paris—vividly affirm Krull's lasting influence on photography's romance with the modern city (Open Book, 18).

Images clean and bright; light edge-wear, minor tape repair to verso of photographic dust jacket. A striking, near-fine copy, very scarce in original dust jacket.