RARE LIMITED FIRST EDITION OF BISTROTS, 1960, ONE OF ONLY 200 COPIES, SIGNED BY ROBERT DOISNEAU, JACQUES PRÉVERT AND ROBERT GIRAUD, WITH 44 MEMORABLE HELIOGRAVURES BY DOISNEAU

(DOISNEAU, Robert). Bistrots [Cafes]. Souillac: Mulhouse, 1960. Slim quarto, original burgundy silk, original glassine, uncut. Housed in a custom clamshell box.    $7500.

Signed limited first edition of the landmark Volume 57 of the prestigious French journal Le Point, number 100 of only 200 copies printed on heavy Arches paper, signed by Robert Doisneau, Jacques Prévert and Robert Giraud, featuring 44 finely screened black-and-white heliogravures of photographs by Robert Doisneau, specially commissioned for this edition.

In praising the work of Robert Doisneau, whose evocative photographs “seem the perfect embodiment of Gallic wit and romance” (New York Times), MoMA curator John Szarkowski particularly singled out images Doisneau took for this 1960 edition of the French journal Le Point. In praising Doisneau’s photograph of “a potential seduction,” entitled “At the Café, Chez Fraysse, Rue de Seine, Paris, 1958” (9), Szarkowski writes that “one is tempted to believe that even the painters of the 18th century never did the subject so well” (Looking at Photographs, 172). The 44 vibrant heliogravures seen here in Bistrots display the “characteristic warmth and humanity” (Parr & Badger I:201) that made Doisneau a leading figure of French humanist photography. Text in French; with a three-page facsimile of Jacques Prévert’s autograph manuscript for his poem “Gravures sur le Zinc,” Robert Giraud’s essay “Bistrots,” and photographic captions by Doisneau.

Images fresh and bright, lightest edge-wear to scarce original glassine. An exceptionally fine copy.