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VICTOR PALLA AND COSTA MARTINS
Lisboa: cidade triste e alegre -- Lisbon: Sad and Happy City. [Lisbon]: the authors/Círculo do Livro Lda., [1959]. Quarto (276 x 230mm). 152 black and white photographs, some folding, on part-leaves, or on yellow stock. (Some quires very lightly browned or with light offsetting.) Original black synthetic boards titled in silver on upper board and spine, original colour photo-illustrated dust-jacket, photo-illustrated endpapers printed on yellow paper (dustwrapper with folds and creases, a few light marks).
FIRST EDITION IN THE RARE DUST-JACKET. PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER JOSé LUIS MADEIRA: 'Ao José Luis Madeira, com admiração Costa Martins Agosto. 89'. 'Of the many postwar photobooks on European cities, this is one of the best ... Lisboa ... is amongst the most complex of modern photobooks in form and content' (The Photobook). The Portuguese architects Costa Martins (1922-1996) and Victor Palla (1922-2005) spent some three years photographing Lisbon, traversing the city by day and night, and capturing the lives of its inhabitants -- particularly those of the poorer districts such as Alfama and Bairro Alto -- in a series of more than 6,000 photographs. These photographs were deployed with great imagination and originality as double-page spreads, half-sheets, and folding plates, interspersed with unpublished poems by writers such as Jorge de Sena, David Mourão Ferreira and José Gomes, and poems by the most famous Lisbon poet of the 20th century, Fernando Pessoa (over both his own name and the heteronyms Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis). The effect is remarkable: 'The book is clearly a visual paean to Lisbon, beginning with the children of the city, followed by random street portraits, progressing through a series of "chapters" to such topics as the harbour, and then ... the city's night life' (The Photobook). Lisboa was published in seven fascicules, and the presence of 3 pairs of double staple-holes with rust-marking at the inner gutter suggest that this copy was bound up from original parts. The edition was limited to 2,000 copies (as here) and 60 numbered copies, and was received with indifference upon publication; this initial failure caused it to become a very rare work particularly in dust-jacket. The Photobook, vol I, pp. 212-213.
Lisboa: cidade triste e alegre -- Lisbon: Sad and Happy City. [Lisbon]: the authors/Círculo do Livro Lda., [1959]. Quarto (276 x 230mm). 152 black and white photographs, some folding, on part-leaves, or on yellow stock. (Some quires very lightly browned or with light offsetting.) Original black synthetic boards titled in silver on upper board and spine, original colour photo-illustrated dust-jacket, photo-illustrated endpapers printed on yellow paper (dustwrapper with folds and creases, a few light marks).
FIRST EDITION IN THE RARE DUST-JACKET. PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER JOSé LUIS MADEIRA: 'Ao José Luis Madeira, com admiração Costa Martins Agosto. 89'. 'Of the many postwar photobooks on European cities, this is one of the best ... Lisboa ... is amongst the most complex of modern photobooks in form and content' (The Photobook). The Portuguese architects Costa Martins (1922-1996) and Victor Palla (1922-2005) spent some three years photographing Lisbon, traversing the city by day and night, and capturing the lives of its inhabitants -- particularly those of the poorer districts such as Alfama and Bairro Alto -- in a series of more than 6,000 photographs. These photographs were deployed with great imagination and originality as double-page spreads, half-sheets, and folding plates, interspersed with unpublished poems by writers such as Jorge de Sena, David Mourão Ferreira and José Gomes, and poems by the most famous Lisbon poet of the 20th century, Fernando Pessoa (over both his own name and the heteronyms Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis). The effect is remarkable: 'The book is clearly a visual paean to Lisbon, beginning with the children of the city, followed by random street portraits, progressing through a series of "chapters" to such topics as the harbour, and then ... the city's night life' (The Photobook). Lisboa was published in seven fascicules, and the presence of 3 pairs of double staple-holes with rust-marking at the inner gutter suggest that this copy was bound up from original parts. The edition was limited to 2,000 copies (as here) and 60 numbered copies, and was received with indifference upon publication; this initial failure caused it to become a very rare work particularly in dust-jacket. The Photobook, vol I, pp. 212-213.
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