“A SEDUCTIVE BLEND OF GALLIC SENSUALITY AND RUSSIAN GLOOM”

FUNKE, Jaromír. Jaromír Funke. (Praha: Edice Mezinárodní Fotografie, 1979). Slim quarto, 12 loose original photographic prints and biographical booklet, together in original white paper portfolio. $1700.

First edition of this portfolio of 12 “modernistic” photographs taken between 1922-44 by Jaromír Funke, “who epitomized the vanguard spirit of European photography between the wars” (New York Times), with an accompanying booklet of biographical notices in multiple languages.

This portfolio contains some of the finest work by Jaromír Funke, who stood at the center of Prague’s flourishing renaissance, where “Czech art and photography [became] an intriguing mixture of cultural influences… Photographers like Jaromír Funke, Franti?ek Drtikol, Josef Sudek and Jindrich Styrský borrowed freely from East and West, and their work is a seductive blend of Gallic sensuality and Russian gloom” (Parr & Badger). Co-founder of the avant-garde Czech Photographic Society in 1924, along with his longtime friend Josef Sudek, Funke is “regarded as the greatest personality of Czech photography [of his time]… In the course of the 30s his work was a model of modernism in photography” (Antonin Dufek). This group of Funke’s photographs includes his famous “Uncomfortable Sleep” (1922) and “Old Iron” (1925). Biographical text in multiple languages, including English. See Parr & Badger I, 87.

A fine copy, with only light soiling to original portfolio.