“TRANSPORTS US RIGHT INTO THE RING”: FIRST EDITION OF CLERGUE’S EL CORDOBES, WITH 77 EXTRAORDINARY BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAVURES

CLERGUE, Lucien. El Cordobes. (Paris): Le Jeune Parque, (1965). Small square quarto, original red paper-covered boards. $550.

First edition, Clergue’s brilliant photobook of famed matador El Cordobés, with 77 dramatic black-and-white photogravures of the charismatic torero whose courage made him a legend.

A founding member of Expression Libre in 1964, Lucien Clergue has produced, in El Cordobes and in works such as Toros muertos (1962), singular photobooks where he “transports us right into the ring” and captures some of “what are arguably the best photographs ever taken of the bullfight” (Parr & Badger I:219). Here Clergue follows the matador Manuel Benítez Pérez—El Cordobés—whose celebrated courage and flamboyance in the ring made him the most highly paid torero in history by the time of his retirement in 1971. With essays by Paco Tolosa, Robert Marteau, Jean-Marie Magnan, J.-M. Goudard and D. Maïsto. Text in French.

Fine.