WITH 44 MEMORABLE HELIOGRAVURES BY ROBERT DOISNEAU, FROM THE COLLECTION OF HIS FORMER ASSISTANT, PETER TURNLEY

(DOISNEAU, Robert). Bistrots [Cafes]. Le Point. Revue Artistique et Littéraire. Volume LVII. Souillac: Mulhouse, 1960. Slim quarto, original burgundy French wrappers over stiff paper boards; pp. 46 [1]. $350.

First trade edition, Volume 57 (1960) of the prestigious French journal, Le Point, with Jacques Prévert’s poem “Gravures sur le Zinc” (Images Taken at the Bar) in a facsimile printing of his autograph manuscript, Robert Giraud’s essay “Bistrots” (Cafes), and featuring 44 finely screened black-and-white heliogravures of photographs by Robert Doisneau, specially commissioned for this edition. From the collection of Doisneau’s former assistant, award-winning photographer Peter Turnley.

In praising the work of Robert Doisneau (1912-94), 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" (p.9), Szarkowski writes that "one is tempted to believe that even the painters of the 18th century never did the subject so well… Robert Doisneau is one of the few whose work has demonstrated… that he actually likes people, even as they really are" (Looking at Photographs, 172). As in his landmark work La Banlieu de paris (1949), 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, "working in a photographic tradition that includes the work of André Kertész, Brassaï and Henri Cartier-Bresson" (New York Times). 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 captions by Doisneau. First trade edition, issued same year as signed limited edition of 200 copies, no priority established. This copy from the collection of acclaimed Newsweek photojournalist Peter Turnley; signed by him on the title page. After moving from America to Paris in the 1970s, Turnley began his career as a photojournalist by working as an assistant to Doisneau.

Interior fine, lightest edge-wear to fragile French wrappers. A near-fine copy of this much sought-after issue, with a distinctive association.