$350
LARTIGUE, Jacques-Henri
[126] pp.
Ami Guichard, Publisher
1966
9 1/2" x 12"
Photographs and text by Jacques-Henri Lartigue. Essay and captions by Jean Fondin from interviews with Lartigue. 128 pp., with 62 tipped-in black and white and sepia-toned reproductions on lightweight matte gray cover stock paper, printed in Switzerland by Imprimerie Centrale Lausanne. 9-1/4 x 12 inches. Near Fine (a few stray marks on the cover (visible only in raking light), very minor shelf wear and a 1/4-inch closed tear at the heel of the spine, faint stain on upper text block, else a near mint copy). Designed to mimic Lartigue's own photo scrapbook, this book contains snapshot-sized reproductions of Lartigue's most beloved photographs, and many lesser-known gems. From the introduction: "Lartigue's pictures, along with his accompanying comments and recollections, represent a kind of family album which summons up not merely the fanciful life of the lavish and successful Lartigue family, but in some sense, the childhood of a century as well. He chronicles how he and his brother and cousins amused themselves on vacations at their country estate, in Paris, among the fashionable ladies and fantastic new devices (horseless carriages, flying machines) of the 1900s. Gradually, through his photographs and memories, a sense of the age begins to take shape, in all its unabashed frivolity, its excitement, its blessed feeling that peace is the natural condition of man and that prosperity (for those who have it, at least) must be enjoyed to the full.".