“ONE OF THE BEST PHOTOBOOKS OF THE 1960S”: FIRST EDITION OF RENÉ BURRI’S DIE DEUTSCHEN

BURRI, Rene. Die Deutschen. (The Germans). (Zurich): Fretz & Wasmuth, (1962). Oblong quarto, original cream cloth, original photographic dust jacket. $850.

True first edition, preceding the French issue by one year, of Burri’s exemplary photobook, featuring 80 finely screened, “sharp and incisive” photogravure plates (Parr & Badger).

A centerpiece of publisher Robert Delpire’s renowned series Encyclopédie essentialle, which also featured Robert Frank’s Les Américains, René Burri’s Die Deutschen is widely acclaimed as “one of the best photobooks of the 1960s… Die Deutschen exactly mirrors Les Américains in conception… Burri’s pictures are sharp and incisive, occupying an interesting middle ground between the controlled framing of the classic photojournalistic mode and the casual looseness of Frank… [Primarily] Burri is a documentary photographer, a photojournalist, in a way that Frank is not …He is both a responsible journalist and an extremely talented photographer” whose chronicle of postwar Germany makes Die Deutschen a striking model of the “classic genre of European photojournalism” (Parr & Badger I:218, 190). A highlight of Delpire’s Encyclopédie essentialle series, Die Deutschen precedes the French issue, titled Les Allemands, by one year.

Images quite clean and fresh; slightest soiling, small closed tear to lower edge of front dust jacket. A classic photobook in near-fine condition.