“ROME SWEET ROME”: RARE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY OF WILLIAM KLEIN’S ROME, INSCRIBED TO AWARD-WINNING PHOTOJOURNALIST PETER TURNLEY

KLEIN, William. Rome: The City and Its People. Paris: Editions du Seuil, (1959). Tall quarto, original black cloth, photographic endpapers, original photographic dust jacket. $6000.

First edition, French issue, the second volume in Klein’s acclaimed series of four “city” books, a distinctive association copy inscribed on the page before the title page to longtime friend, fellow photographer Peter Turnley, “To Peter, ROME SWEET ROME, en toute amitié, William [line drawn] William Klein Paris 2005,” with over 130 vivid, high-contrast heliogravures (many double-page), scarce in original dust jacket.

According to Fellini, "this is the best Rome there is and Klein is the best photographer there is. He knows Rome like a book and this is it." "Cheesy, delirious, pure Pop art," William Klein's Rome continues the "raw, kinetic and utterly original" innovations of Life is Good (1956) (Roth, 140-41). His genius resides in an unerring ability to remind "us that much great, serious art is often about play, achieved simply by experimenting with the possibilities of the material. Forget trance and witness-the revels are the thing" (Parr & Badger I:243). Rome is the second volume in Klein's "city" series, "four books of photography which shook the very roots of this medium's young tradition… filled with raw, grainy, swirling yet abrupt images, which visually describe these cities in a manner never previously seen before" (Christian Sciene Monitor). First edition, French issue; London, New York and Rome editions published same year. Text in French. Open Book, 178. See Icons of Photography, 120. This rare association copy is from the collection of Peter Turnley, renowned photographer for Newsweek and contributing editor for Harper's Magazine who has covered "almost every important international news event of the last 15 years" (New York Times). Warmly inscribed by Klein in Paris, where both photographers are based.

Images clean and fresh, front inner paper hinge starting but sound; some chipping with loss to edges of bright, unrestored dust jacket. An exceptional association copy in extremely good condition.